Grey Areas
by TStabler
Summary: There are moments in life when lines get blurred, and the clear distinctions between two things no longer exist. In the lives of two NYPD detectives, the lines between day and night are blurred together, and so are the lines between partner and lover. Now, the grey areas are starting to darken, and it will change everything. E/O
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: In the lives of NYPD detectives, the lines between day and night are blurred together, and so are the lines between partner and lover.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.**

"Fucking hell," Olivia complained, rolling her eyes. She looked down at her ringing cell phone, declined the call, and looked over at her partner. "If Kathy calls me one more time..."

"Oh," her partner interrupted, "so that's why she stopped calling me."

Olivia suddenly went white. "Jesus," she spat, picking up her phone and redialing the most recent missed call. "Kathy, hi, sorry, is it one of the kids?" she asked in a panic, but quickly shrunk and rolled her eyes again, and slumped down in her chair. "Oh, um, no, no, we...we'll be here all night. I haven't heard it ring, it's probably dead. Hey, Kathy? I have to go, we have to run and..." She looked up at Elliot. "She hung up on me."

"Shame," Elliot said sarcastically. "Liv, don't you think that if I thought, for a single moment, that something had happened to one of my kids, I would've ignored all her calls?" He shook his head. "I know what she wants, and I don't really care."

"Talking like that is gonna find you on the receiving end of a very sharp divorce," she told him, pointing a finger at him.

"Yeah? That's what I've been waiting for, for the last two years, so if she could get a move on..." he waved a hand and made an exaggeratedly irritated expression.

Olivia narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms, and shook her head at him. "You can't be serious," she scoffed. "Your family, El, that's your whole life. It has been for as long as I've known you, and..."

"My family, Liv," he said, parroting her words, "Will always be my top priority. But, uh, Kathy, ya know, she hasn't been...we've had a lot of..." he cleared his throat. "You know, you're my family. You do know that, don't you?"

She shot him an odd look, one eyebrow up, her mouth in a twisted and confused line. "Warner call, yet?"

He sighed. "Nope," he said, "But she said it would take a couple hours."

"It's been a couple hours," she said with an annoyed breath.

"Well, enjoy the break!" He laughed and asked, "How often do we get to just sit and...do nothing? Talk?"

"We haven't actually talked in weeks," she reminded him with a firmness in her voice she hoped came off as threatening.

"Yeah," he exhaled, "So let's talk. Did you look into that apartment?"

She shook her head as she took a sip of her coffee. "No, it's a bit out of my price range, and I haven't been where I am that long. I'm just starting to like the place."

"It's only got one bedroom," he said, squinting.

"Why the hell do I need more than one bedroom?" she retorted.

He looked offended for a moment, but then he smirked almost wickedly. "Well, yeah, I see your point." He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, starting to flip a pen around in his hand. "What if...what if I offered to split the rent with you?"

"Jesus, El," she huffed, "That's a nice offer, but unless you were living with..." and she stopped, almost choking on her words. She looked at him, the slight worry evident in his eyes, and she said, "You're serious." She looked over her shoulder and then leaned closer to Elliot. "Do you want me to call her back? I can take swing with Fin, you can go home and…"

"Do I look broken up about this?" he asked, a smug look on his face. "I was, yeah, but now I get it. I accept it, and I agree with her. This is…this is what's best for everyone involved. Trust me." He blinked and then said, "Do you remember when we took the twins to that amusement park in Jersey?"

"The weekend you took them to see your mom?" she asked. When he nodded she said, "Yeah, of course, I remember."

His smile grew a bit, and his eyes lit up. "After the log flume, when you took her to change into dry clothes…and she was embarrassed…do you remember what you did?"

She grinned and nodded, but looked down and pretended to look for a file. "I made her sing…"

"Don't Be Jealous of my Boogie," he laughed. "Yeah."

"But how did you even know that?" she asked. "We were in the women's restroom."

He shrugged and licked his lips. "I have my ways," he said. "I am a detective, after all." He chuckled and then cleared his throat. "You, uh, you made her day, Liv. Really. She was different after that, more…more confident. I don't know if I ever thanked you."

"You didn't have to," she said, smiling at him. "You, um, you don't have to thank me. You've got great kids, El, and if I can, somehow, help them or make their lives better in some small way…" she raised and lowered her shoulders and exhaled deeply. "That's all I can do, and I'm happy…and honored to do it."

He shook his head fast. "No, Liv, you…you have changed their lives and made them better people. You teach them and encourage them, motivate them, give them advice and…every day one of them tells me something you told them, or something you taught them, and I need you to know…you've done the same damn thing for me."

She cleared her throat again, smoothing her hands down over the sleeves of her blue sweater, tugging at the cuffs. She bit her lip and swiped her bangs out of her eyes with one finger, flicking her head back a bit, and chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "That was a really nice day," she whispered. "Why didn't you take Kath…"

"Because that day, Liv, it just had to be you," he told her, cutting off the rest of her sentence. They held each other's gaze for a moment, maybe a bit too long. Just as it seemed he was going to say something, the phone rang, causing both of them to startle. He moved first. "Stabler," he said, but it came out a dry croak.

Olivia eyed him suspiciously. There was something different about him, something on his mind, she could tell, that he wasn't confiding to her. She brushed it off when he hung up the phone and shot her a look. "What?"

"That was Warner," he said.

"Yeah, I figured that out," she said. "What did she say?"

He bit his lip and tilted his head, puzzled and annoyed. "The sample on our vic's thighs…she ran it, and it had 13 markers in common with our vic."

"Her father?" Olivia asked, a grimace on her face that conveyed disgust, but not shock. Sadly, this was something she had seen before, more than once.

Elliot gritted his teeth and started to get out of his chair. "Let's go talk to the lying sack of shit, shall we?"

She rose, but turned quickly at the sound of Cragen's door slamming open. "Not yet," he shouted. "Got another body." He held out a torn piece of paper as he walked over to them. "Warner will meet you there, so will Munch."

"Three of us?" Elliot questioned.

"Four," Cragen said, nodding once. "Fin's already there."

Olivia narrowed her eyes. "All hands on deck?" she asked. "Cap, who is it?"

"Just go," Cragen said sternly. "Call me when you get there."

She took the paper, looked at it, and then looked at Elliot. "Ready?"

He nodded and the two ran, side by side, in step, out through the squadroom doors.

Cragen watched them go, hoping they could handle the case without letting any personal issues get in the way, because this case was going to get very personal, very soon.

 **A/N: Uh oh!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: In the lives of NYPD detectives, the lines between day and night are blurred together, and so are the lines between partner and lover.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.**

"Are you okay?" Elliot's voice was just a hair above a whisper, his hand on Olivia's shoulder. They'd been at the park for over an hour, waiting, listening, working in stunned silence.

She shook her head, her lip caught between her teeth. "No," she said, though it came out as nothing more than a breath. She looked around, her entire unit busy, giving the case one hundred percent of their attention. "I just…this is…" she looked over her shoulder, but just couldn't bring himself to look into his eyes. "It could've been you."

"No," he whispered to her. "See, I have this incredible partner who…knows how to operate, knows my every move before I take it. No way in hell would that ever be me." He leaned closer to her, his breath hitting her ear as he spoke, "Or you."

She gave him a small smile, nodding once, but then sighed and shook her head. "Well, where was her partner?"

Elliot shrugged. "I really don't know," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I didn't even know she was back on the job."

"Six months paid leave and mandatory therapy," she told him. "She, uh, she called Cragen. Asked for her old job back." She swallowed. "When he said no, she took the first thing they offered."

"Vice," Elliot muttered. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"What is?" she returned, squinting.

"Cops…we live for this job, we say we would die if we ever had to do anything else," he began. He looked at her. "But the job itself…could kill us."

Cragen cleared his throat, hiding a smug grin as he watched the pair jump apart. "Just talked to McCallum," he said. "She was UC, trying to crack down on underground gambling ring." He looked down at the body of Monique Jeffries, the color draining from his face. "She got too close to the top, and it cost her."

Olivia knelt then, beside the body, and looked down at the former friend and colleague. "They put her undercover, in a high-stakes situation like that, alone?" She looked up at Cragen. "You have sent me with…"

"She wasn't alone," Cragen interrupted. "Her partner is MIA. No contact since an hour before Jeffries was found."

"Were they compromised?" Elliot asked.

"Must've been," Cragen said. "You two, finish up with Warner, and then head back to the house." He rubbed his face with one hand, shaking his head again. "I know this is hard, but we…"

"Don't get to pick the vic," Olivia said mechanically. "We know." She looked away from her captain and turned her attention toward the medical examiner, Melinda Warner. "What can you tell us?"

Warner cleared her throat. "This was violent," she said, though there was no emotion in her voice. "COD is blunt force trauma, sins of a brutal assault, physical and sexual. This was personal." She took a moment to compose herself. "But the bastard knew what he was doing. There's very little trace on her body, he cleaned up after himself." She carefully lifted Jeffries's left hand, letting it hang limply by the wrist, and said, "Even clipped her fingernails."

Olivia narrowed her eyes. "But that's…"

"Professional," Melinda said, nodding. "And she's been wiped down with cleanser. Smell that?"

Olivia and Elliot gave the air around them a good, long whiff. "Bleach," Elliot said.

Warner nodded again. "Covered his tracks, and destroyed any chance of running tests on anything that he managed to leave behind."

Elliot huffed. "Son of a bitch," he spat. "We need to know who she was on to," he said.

"McCallum," Olivia said. "He's the only one who'd know. Besides her partner."

Elliot rose, straightening out, and held out a hand to help Olivia stand. Once she was upright, though, he didn't let go. "Who was her partner, anyway?"

"Another question for McCallum," Olivia said, taking one last look at Jeffries while the ME's team sealed her up in a black bag. "We got all we can from Warner."

"For now," he said, nodding. He pulled her toward him as he moved back across the park, heading for the yellow tape. He nodded at one of the younger officers as he stepped under the line, and then looked back at Olivia. "We didn't really know her," he said softly. "The only one that's really feeling this is…"

"Munch," she said to him, nodding fast. "I know." She looked down at their hands, still linked, and though she was confused, she found needed comfort in his hold. "What are we up against, here, El?"

He looked at her as he stopped moving, his hand squeezing hers a bit tighter. "What?" he questioned, hopefulness in his voice. When he realized she'd meant nothing more than work, his shoulders fell, along with his heart. "Oh, uh, I don't know. You know, there are a lot of big players in this city. Mob bosses, hit men, political vermin. Any one of them could have found out she was a cop, took care of her before she could bring them down."

She looked up, then, finding his eyes. He hadn't loosened his grip on her hand, and she had found the courage to ask him about it. "El, what are you…"

A shrill chirp cut her off, and with a sad smile, he dropped her hand and held up a finger. Finding his cell phone in his jacket pocket, he answered with a clear, "Stabler." He kept his eyes locked on Olivia's as he spoke. "Yeah, yeah, uh…how did you know…well, um, thanks. No, not tonight. Working, this case is…no, uh, the cribs. I can't, no. Kiss the kids for me." He hung up without saying goodbye.

"Kathy?" she asked, unsure of where the suddenly hateful tone in her voice had originated.

"Yeah," he said. "She wants to talk. I don't, uh, I don't have anything to say to her. Nothing that would change…change what's happening."

She gave him a puzzled look. "Well, what, exactly, is happening?"

"She's leaving," he said with a shrug. "I'm not stopping her this time." He bit his lip and hesitated for a moment, and then moved closer to her. "'This is just what needs to happen, Liv. For everyone involved, things are gonna get better. I'm not upset, so don't look at me like that."

She tried to smile, as though her entire world hadn't just been shifted by ten degrees. "Sorry," she said with a shrug.

"Oh, you are not," he laughed. Moving again, he led her toward their sedan. "You were just as tired of the fighting and nonsense as me. Besides, you know you love having me around." He winked and said, "And you know I don't snore."

She scoffed and tilted her head. "Hey, whoa, pal," she laughed. "What does that even…"

"Liv," he said, stopping her, and he let out a long sigh of something between relief and exhaustion, "It's over. All of it. The pretending, the hiding, the lying, the fucking guilt…it's done."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked, her eyes narrow and her arms crossed. Her heart was thumping against her chest, her pulse racing, her breathing almost completely halted. This could be a moment she had waited three years for, a miracle she'd begged and prayed to be given. "El?"

"You really don't know?" He took a deep breath, unlocked and opened the car, and said, "Get in."

As she quietly settled into the passenger seat, she felt it happen. The world settled into its new orbit and she could practically hear the carefully drawn line between her and Elliot erase and redraw itself in a bright new color. She closed her eyes, hearing nothing but the roar of the engine as he started the car, and thoughts of Elliot's new availability drifted away, being replaced by the somber darkness of the case they'd been handed.

A friend.

A colleague.

A victim.

All the same person.

It was hour eight of what should have been a ten hour shift, but with this new and tragic addition to their caseload, it didn't seem like it was going to end on time, and Elliot hadn't actually been lying to his wife. She yawned and blinked twice. "We need coffee."

He laughed. "Yeah, we really do," he said, looking over at her. "You know, don't you?"

"Know what?" she asked. "El, you've been acting really…"

"Later," he interrupted. "I promise. We will…I'll figure it out. Later." He looked at her and smiled, and hoped that he could find the right words, that he could explain it to himself before he tried explaining it all to her. He needed it to be clear, black and white. At the moment, though, everything was shades of grey.

 **A/N: Another familiar face, coming back to haunt them, next.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: "History is cyclic, and the past always comes back to teach us lessons we didn't learn the first time."**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"Are you gonna be okay?" His voice was barely a whisper, his hands shaking slightly as he handed her a cup of the sludge the NYPD had the balls to call coffee.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, cool as a cucumber. "It's you, that I think is gonna have a problem."

"Me?" He scoffed, but he knew he was cornered.

She hummed with a sly grin as she lifted her coffee to her lips. "You've always had a problem with him," she said. "It got worse after..."

"You went out with him," he finished, nodding dejectedly. "Why did you dump him again?" He took a sip of his own brew, but when she said, "He wasn't you," he spit his mouthful of coffee out in a harsh spray.

"Jesus," she said, laughing. She reached for a napkin and helped him wipe up the bit that had landed on his tie. "I'm kidding," she said, rolling her eyes. "No one dumped anyone. He felt guilty. His soon-to-be-ex-wife was sick, and he didn't think it..."

"Benson, Stabler," Cragen said, opening his office door. "He's ready for you."

Together, almost completely in sync, they set their coffees down on the table and headed for the office, both holding their breath, for different reasons. Once they were inside, Cragen closed the door, and waited, silent.

"Olivia," the man waiting for them said as he rose from his seat. "You look..."

"Incredible," Elliot said bitterly. "Yeah, she does, what the hell happened between you and Jeffries?"

"Just jumping right to that, huh, Stabler," the man said, shaking his head. He sat back down and shrugged. "She got made. I don't know how, but she did. I wasn't, so I'm grateful your guys, when they found me, made it look..."

"We know how to keep cover," Elliot interrupted. "So tell us who you were after, and what happened to her, Curtis."

Rey Curtis, a former Homicide detective now working undercover with Vice, glared at Elliot for a moment. "Look, I wanna help you nail the bastard that killed Monique, but I don't wanna be next on his list!"

"Rey," Olivia spoke calmly. She put a hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes, leaned down to him, and lowered her voice. "You were her partner. You couldn't protect her, but you can get justice for her now."

"Christ, Olivia," he almost whimpered, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "If he finds out I..."

"You tell us," she said, stopping him, "And we go in, with your unit, and this whole thing is over. You can go home, finally tell your wife and kids where you've been. Take care of her."

Rey looked up at her, then, stunned. "How did you know I didn't go through with the..."

"Rey," she said, once again interrupting him, "I could tell." She didn't want to say how much experience she had with men who just couldn't leave their wives. She shot a glance at Elliot, and her breath hitched when she saw something in his eyes. She smiled at him, seeing him smile back, and then turned toward Rey again. "Tell us who you're targeting."

Rey ran a hand down his face and licked his lips, deliberating. "George Callaghan." He waited for the audible gasps and mumbled curses to subside, and then said, "That's why you gotta get me outta here, and back under, before he realizes you're onto him, too, and has us all killed." He sent a harsh look toward Elliot, but then gritted his teeth and looked back at Olivia. "And tell your partner to stop sending me threatening text messages."

Olivia straightened up and looked at Elliot. "Excuse me?"

"Not now," Elliot said. He looked at Rey. "When did you last see Jeffries alive?"

Rey exhaled slowly. "Three days ago. Callaghan's son took me to Vegas, we had to uh, make some collections," he said, shifting in his seat. "The plane landed, I got back to my op-house, and you had guys waiting for me. She was alive when I left, dead when I got back, I don't know anything about..."

"Who made her?" Elliot spat, venom in his voice. "Come on, you have to know someone who could have recognized her, or figured it out."

Rey shook his head, thinking, but then he stiffened and licked his lips. He rubbed his chin a bit and said, "Some new guy, when we were all introduced, he looked at her like...like he'd seen her before."

"What's his name?" Olivia asked.

Rey, after taking another deep breath, threw his hands up and then dropped them to his thighs. "Devlin. Billy Devlin."

"Collar from a few years back, not enough evidence to convict, Munch and Jeffries had to let him go," Elliot mumbled, his eyes narrow. "You're sure?"

"Look, whatever you think of me," Rey began, eyeing Elliot, "I'm a good man, and a good cop. I'm involve with this case, going on two months, I haven't seen my kids, my wife...is dying...and you think I would risk my life like this if I wasn't sure?"

Elliot cringed. "Yeah, sorry," he said, and then he cleared his throat. "I'll have a couple uniforms take you back to the hole, you just tell Callaghan they couldn't stick you with anything, you kept your mouth shut. We'll raid the place and...we'll make it look good."

Rey nodded, stood up, and left the office. He looked back at them and nodded as he was willingly cuffed and escorted out of the squadroom altogether.

Olivia shook her head, stood up a bit straighter, and moved closer to Elliot. "You sent him threatening text messages?"

"A couple," he shrugged. "Not recently. He was being a drama queen."

"Why the hell would you?" she asked, stern eyed.

Elliot shrugged innocently. "He lied to you, he led you on..."

"He couldn't drag his sick wife through a messy divorce," she interrupted. "He told me he owed it to her to stay with her, until...you know." She took a breath. "I told him I understood, El, so then why would you..."

"Because I saw the pain in your eyes," he whispered. "And any man who causes that, including myself, deserves an angry text or two, and a hell of a lot more." He looked into her eyes and lowered his voice even more. "You know, me and Kathy, it's really over. No going back, I promise."

She tilted her head. "Why do you keep..."

"You discussing how to play this?" Cragen asked, interrupting their intimate conversation. "This needs to be handled carefully, we already lost one cop."

Elliot turned and nodded, and then said, "We close in after midnight, when they start up the tables." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Callaghan is running for governor, so you know he's got a security team, probably just as corrupt. We'll need a full team to..."

"I know that," Cragen said, inhaling deeply. "I'll set it up, meanwhile, you two...start compiling charges and see if there's a judge in this city willing to risk pissing off Callaghan."

Olivia and Elliot looked at each other, grinned, and simultaneously said, "Donnelly." They shared a laugh and walked out of Cragen's office, heading back over to their forgotten coffees. She was the first to brave a sip and made a face of disgusted disappointment. "Cold and just...awful."

Elliot downed his in one,long gulp. "Gets the job done, though," he said, and then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and tossed the empty cup into the trash can. "Listen, uh, I think we should talk."

She threw out her now empty cup, folded her arms, and looked at him. "What's the matter?" she asked, knowing the tone of his voice. Hell, she hated knowing his emotions better than he did, sometimes.

He frowned and shook his head. "Nothing, uh, nothing bad, no, I just..." he scratched behind his right ear. "Just...need to talk to you, about something that...isn't work related." He reached over and tugged on the collar of her sweater, smoothing it out. He smiled softly, letting his hand trail lightly down her side, chuckling when she jumped a bit. "Forgot, you're ticklish."

"Hm," she breathed, her bottom lip gnashed between her teeth. "Okay, uh, well, after...after we finish this." She offered him the least nervous smile she could muster, and she moved back toward the desk. "I'll call Donnelly."

Before she made it all the way to the desk, he called her name, and smiled again when she stopped, turned, and looked at him. "I promise, it's...a good thing."

Relieved, she nodded, and then picked up the phone to hopefully get their warrant. "Hello, Your Honor, this is Olivia Benson, Special Vic..."

"Liv! Down!" Elliot yelled, leaping over to her and sending them both crashing to the floor. He pulled her behind their metal desks as bullets began to ricochet around them, and he reached for his own gun, moving to get up and return fire.

"Don't," she begged, grabbing his hand and holding it against his hip, shaking her head violently. "El, please. Don't."

He nodded, pulled her close, and kissed her forehead once before he curled himself around her tightly, shutting his eyes until the gunfire stopped. He nudged her away, checking her over for any hits, and then nodded at her as, together, they readied their weapons and peeked over the desks. He was the first to aim higher, slowly standing. He looked around and saw several other officers rising from their own shielded positions. "What the fuck happened?"

A younger officer, slowly lowering his gun, shook his head. "He was in the back, talking to Briscoe and then he...turned and fired."

"At who?" Olivia questioned, her eyes wide. She holstered her gun and took a few steps toward the body on the floor, a pool of red slowly growing beneath him.

The young cop blinked, turned his head, and then looked over his shoulder. "Captain Cragen," he said, rigid, and then looked back at Elliot. "You saw him and thought..."

"He was aiming at Liv," Elliot said, nodding and without thinking, pulling Olivia back to him. "I knew I wouldn't be able to draw in time, but I..."

"You startled him, Detective," the officer continued. "When you yelled, he jumped, he hesitated. It gave me time to...well, I mean, I just..."

"You did just fine, kid," Cragen said, pale and shaking, but giving the young man a thankful pat on the shoulder. "Give your statement to Munch, here, and Fin...go talk to Briscoe, find out who this prick is." He looked up, looked around at the visibly damaged squadroom, and said, "And someone call Warner."

Olivia tugged her hand from Elliot's and ran to pick up her desk phone, which had fallen to the floor when Elliot tackled her. She lifted the receiver to her ear, hearing a shrill beeping, disconnection signal. She rolled her eyes as she resituated it on her desk, and then called the medical examiner. Just as she was beginning to tell Doctor Warner what had happened, a frantic blonde ran into the room followed by several officers and detectives from other units.

"Judge Donnelly," Elliot said, stunned, "What are you doing here?"

"I was on the phone with Benson," Donnelly began, one hand over her racing heart as she toed her way into the room and looked around with wide eyes, taking it all in. "I heard the gun shots, and I heard screams, I thought..." she took a breath, "Well, I don't know what I thought, but I was only a block away, so I ran straight here and raised holy hell in the lobby until they brought me up here."

Elliot looked confused. "A block away, but how is that..."

"I called her cell," Olivia said, giving Elliot an exasperated expression. "Warner's on her way up here. Are you okay?"

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with both palms. "Fuck, no...no, I'm...I'm not."

Olivia walked over to him and pulled him toward the back of the room. She lowered her head to try to look into his eyes as he hung his head. "Look at me, El. Look at me." She finally settled and searched his eyes once he lifted his head. "We're okay. Okay? Breathe."

"I saw that gun, trained on you, and I..." he shook his head, a lump forming in his throat and the words being blocked by it.

"Elliot," she whispered, head slightly cocked to one side.

He took a breath and let it out slowly, took another, and then held her gaze. "Liv, we...we really need to talk. I don't think it can wait. Not...not after this." There was some commotion behind him as Cragen and Donnelly began to talk to the other officers, and people moved to allow the crime scene unit some space as they shuffled into the room. "But it has to, doesn't it?"

She nodded. "Just tell me what's wrong. Is it Kathy? You're not sure you want..."

"Fuck, no, don't you listen when I talk?" he laughed, giving her a light backhanded slap in the shoulder. "I just..."

"Hey! Holmes and Watson!" Cragen called, waving Olivia and Elliot over to him and Donnelly. "This one's yours."

Elliot cursed under his breath. "Course it is," he spat.

"El," Olivia said, before they moved, and when he looked at her, she told him, "Do you know why I didn't want you to get involved in that shootout? The truth is..."

"Benson! Stabler! Now!" Cragen barked impatiently.

Rolling her eyes, Olivia nudged Elliot toward the overwhelming scene in the middle of the squadroom, managing to mumble something to him quickly.

His heart stopped. For almost a full minute. When it started again, it seemed to beat new life into him, and he knew he had heard her correctly. One word. One single word, followed by gentle command.

 _Later. Now just relax._

He straightened out his coffee-stained tie, a new vigor and determination to work, to get to the bottom of this. He looked down at the body of a man they had yet to identify, a man that had just opened fire at his boss, and he angled his brows. This asshole had just crossed a line.

He grinned, then, and raised one brow as he shot a glance toward Olivia, who was oblivious to his stare. He licked his lips and nodded once. There were some lines he was about to cross, himself, if time ever allowed. He just hoped he knew what the hell he was doing.

 **A/N: Does later ever come? Elliot has a conversation with Kathy, and the takedown goes down, but is it without a hitch? Want answers? Hmm?**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Later...never comes...when you expect it.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I would LOVE to own these marvelous characters, but sadly, I only own the stories I use them in. My words, my plot, my mind,my heart. 3 Tstabler.**

"Okay, so all we know so far is that this was an inside job," Fin explained, leaning back in his chair. He looked over his shoulder, making sure that Cragen was out of earshot, and said, "Someone wants Cragen dead, and went outta the way to hire a cop in the unit to do the job."

"I don't think that's the whole story," Munch surmised, flopping down a folder as he sat in his own chair. "Fredrick's jacket. Cragen reported him to the big guys, twice, for insubordination. Tucker wrote him up...almost as much as he wrote up Stabler. This may have been him, acting of his own volition. Warning in his file, here, says if he got one more black mark, he was out of the unit, possibly out of the department altogether."

Fin picked up the file,flipped through it, and shook his head. "He didn't seem the type, man. Besides, Briscoe said that they were talkin' shop before he opened fire. Something about a case they were workin' involving a couple'a pros on Thirty-Fifth street. This came outta nowhere, so if his goal was to off the Cap'n, he wouldn't..."

"Bingo!" Elliot yelled from his desk, clapping his hands together. "Ran his financials, a deposit hit his account two days ago, two mil. Yesterday, another deposit, five hundred grand." He stood up and walked over to the other side, stopping behind Olivia. He leaned over her, wrapping his arms loosely around her shoulders, and started typing on her keyboard.

"Uh, excuse me, Liv, can I use your computer? Sure, El, no problem," she said sarcastically.

"Thanks, knew you wouldn't mind." He chuckled, a low laugh, right into her ear. He pulled up the program that had been running on his own computer and twisted the monitor so the rest of his team could see it. "Both transfers came from the same account."

Olivia, furrowing her brow and taking back control of her computer, frantically typed the number into the search engine of a different program. "Oh, shit," she muttered, scanning the results. "Guys, uh, those deposits came from Callaghan's campaign account."

"No," Munch said, shaking his head. "No, how could he possibly have..."

"Someone call Rey," Olivia interrupted. "He might be in trouble." She pushed her chair back, knocking Elliot aside, and grabbed her jacket.

Elliot found his feet and grabbed her arm. "Where the hell do you think..."

"We can't wait until after midnight," she said, cutting him off. "Donnelly gave us the warrant, now we have more of a reason to go after him, before anything happens to..."

"You still have feelings for him?" he asked, tightening his grip on her.

Her eyes went wide as she yanked her arm away from him. "Another cop," she spat, finishing her sentence. "A cop with kids, Elliot, not everything is personal!" She walked away fast, knowing he'd follow.

"We're gonna need backup!" he yelled on his way out, hoping someone heard him, and knew where to send it. "Liv! Liv, wait!"

"I can't," she hissed. "If Callaghan knew Rey was here, talking to us, and was already planning to have Cragen killed, there's no telling what else he's planning, or already doing." She led him through the stairwell door, racing down the cement stairs two at a time. "And no, I don't have feelings for him, asshole. I never really did."

Elliot couldn't help but sigh in relief at her words, but he held back his emotions as he mumbled, "Right. Sorry." He followed her out of the metal door and through the lobby, and then out of the building, speeding toward their car. "I'll drive," he told her, getting his keys out of his pocket.

"You got the address he gave you?" she asked, watching him hit the button on the fob to unlock the car. Before he could answer, though, they were knocked off their feet and thrown into the air.

The blast was loud, the flames high, the smoke thick and black. Several people ran toward the chaos, car alarms starting to go off loudly, as bits of maroon colored metal and burnt, melted plastic fell around them.

Coughing, she managed to roll over, feeling her bones crack and muscles scream at her for moving. "Fuck," she choked, squeezing her eyes shut and wincing as she tried to sit up. "Elliot? El!"

"I'm okay," he coughed, shifting around and crawling over to her. "Are you hurt?"

Still coughing, she shook her head. She reached for him and pulled him up, and when they both sat up straight, she asked, "What the fuck just happened?"

He shrugged. Turning toward her, he brushed some ash and dust off of her, asking with his eyes if she was really okay. He pulled her closer to him, kissing her forehead the way he'd done after the shooting in the squadroom. "I'm okay," he whispered, knowing he had answered her unasked question.

She nodded, a lump in her throat preventing her from saying anything. She heard sirens drawing closer, and she knew it was the fire department. "We need to move," she said, "El, we have to...it's gonna..."

"I know," he said, and he moaned in pain as he got to his knees and pulled her up with him, bringing them to their feet. He looped an arm around her waist as he supported her, running as fast as he could toward the station, knowing that at any moment, there would be another explosion, this time caused by the gas tank in what was left of the car.

No sooner had they reached the side of the brick building, they were thrust to the ground again by the blast they knew was coming. Surrounding cars were damaged, widows broken and doors dented, but now, there was nothing left of the old maroon sedan that held too many memories and empty coffee cups to count.

Coughing again, Olivia lifted her head and opened her eyes, Elliot peering down from on top of her. His eyes said everything she needed to hear, needed to know, and without thinking, she kissed him. It was quick, over as soon as it began, but he smiled when his lips left hers, and she smiled back, with tears in her eyes.

"What?" he asked, scared. "What hurts, are you..."

"Liv! Elliot!" Fin yelled, running toward them. As he drew closer, the firefighters marched toward the flaming cars and black smoke, making the scene look far more emergent than it was. "Shit, you guys okay?"

"Yeah," Elliot's answer came. He got to his feet again, and then reached down to lift Olivia off of the asphalt. "We're...we're okay."

"Bomb squad," Olivia wheezed, holding her left side. She held up a hand when Elliot moved to check her for injury. "I'm fine, El." She looked over at Fin. "Call the bomb squad, and we need to send someone over to the..."

"Already called 'em," Fin interrupted, reaching for her. "Cap wants you two to see the EMTs, SWAT is heading to break up Callaghan's little victory party as we speak."

Elliot looked at him funny, limping as he walked, still holding onto Olivia, over toward the waiting ambulance. "Victory party?"

Fin nodded, helping Elliot lift Olivia up onto the back of the van. "He probably thinks the entire unit's dead by now. No one told him any different." He watched the EMT wrap a blood-pressure cuff around her arm and start pumping the gauge. "We found Rey Curtis. He was still in transit, he's okay."

"Oh, good, thank God," she said with a sigh. As the cuff got tighter, so did her grip on Elliot's hand, which she didn't even know she was holding. "Warning you, pal, it's gonna be fucking high," she said, pointedly, to the EMT.

He laughed and starting lifting the side of her sweater with gloved hands. "This hurt?" he asked, pushing gently against her lower rib cage. Her wincing gave him his answer. "Might be a broken rib." He continued his cursory examination, including making sure her pupils dilated and contracted.

With every new move, she squeezed Elliot's hand.

"Okay, I'm right here," he whispered to her.

"You're next,Detective Stabler," the EMT said, "And then I have orders to have the two of you brought to Mercy General for a complete eval.

He rolled his eyes, but begrudgingly he complied, easing Olivia over a bit and sitting next to her on the metal lip of the ambulance. He went through the same brief tests that Olivia had endured, rolling his eyes again when the EMT put tiny bandaids on his chin and forehead, and huffing gruffly when he was told that is ankle was badly sprained.

"Could be worse," Olivia said, leaning into him, "Much worse." She looked up, into his worried and scared eyes, and she bit her lip, wondering if kissing him before had been the wrong thing. It probably was, but God, she wanted to do it again. "I, uh, I'm..."

"Olivia!" It was Cragen's voice, panic stricken. "Elliot! Jesus Christ!"

"Don't think he's here, Cap," Elliot joked, "But me and Liv are...we're okay." He felt her trying to pull her hand out of his, but it was his turn to tighten grip. "Few bumps and bruises, that's all."

"Yeah," Cragen scoffed, "Thank fucking hell that's all." He looked at Fin. "You, meet SWAT on Madison Avenue, now. Take Munch with you. This bastard is going down."

Olivia grunted as she tried to move, turning more toward Cragen. "You weren't this pissed off when you were almost killed."

Cragen tried to smile at her in a way that didn't look emotional. "I wasn't," he said flatly. "You two..." he paused and shook his head, choking on the words as hey formed behind the ball of fear lodged in his throat. "No one hurts the two of you like this. And if they do, they do not fucking get away with it, not on my watch." He looked at Elliot. "You sure you're both all right?"

Elliot nodded. "She might have a cracked rib, I got a sprained ankle, we're both gonna be a but purple in the morning, but yeah, Cap," he said. "We're okay."

"This can't just be about bringing down Callaghan," Olivia said, her watering eyes squinting.

Cragen sighed. "No," he said. "You're right. It's not." He looked at the EMT. "Take them, get them a room. The same room. Two beds, one window, away from any doors or elevators. I'm having a B and W follow you, and those two armed officers will be standing outside that room at all times, do you understand me?"

The EMT nodded, not blinking, and started to guide Olivia up and into one of the stretchers in the truck.

"Wait," she said, her hand still linked with Elliot's. "Captain, what the hell is going on?" She winced when her hand fell away from Elliot's and she plopped onto the stretcher.

Cragen looked apologetically at her. "I will tell you, as soon as you both are checked out and stable at Mercy."

"C'mon, Detective Stabler," the EMT said, pulling Elliot up.

"Cap?" Elliot questioned.

Cragen shook his head. "Later, Elliot," he said. "Just...take car of each other. I'll be there as soon as I can."

The EMT closed the rear ambulance doors, cutting off Cragen's view of Elliot and Olivia, and their pale, panicked faces. "When I get my hands you," he said to no one, "I will kill you, you son of a bitch." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing a number he hoped he would never have to use again. "Hey, it's Don Cragen. We have a situation." He took a breath and let it out fast. "She's okay, for now, but it's only a matter of time until he tries again." A brief silence. "I'll meet you at the airport."

He hung up, dropped the phone into his pocket, and then signaled a squad car to follow the ambulance. With a severity in his eyes, he walked toward a black car, got into the drivers seat, and slapped a blue, flashing light onto the dashboard. Like a bat of hell, Cragen drove off, not telling anyone where he was going. Or why.

 **A/N: Oh, my! Say what? What happens next? Are they really okay? Who's coming to help? The world may never know...unless, you know, you want to, and stuff. R/R?**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Lying and keeping secrets are often the same things. Sometimes, they are vastly different.**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"Hey," he called over to Olivia, watching her toy with the IV tube dangling beside her. "Stop that, you're gonna pull it..." he closed his eyes, pressed his lips together, and shook his head. "Didn't even get the words out of my mouth."

Rubbing her hand, she turned to him. "I'm an adult," she said, easing toward the side of the bed. "I can sign myself..."

"Liv!" His voice was panicked and a bit louder than he had intended. "Get back in that bed."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but sighed as she scooted back and dropped back down to the mattress. She pulled the sheet over her again and rolled her eyes. "This sucks," she spat. She sighed harshly and looked over at him, immediately paling. She took in the sight of him, bandaged and hooked up to hospital equipment, his foot looped through a hanging sling, his ankle wrapped. "Are you...are you okay?"

"I'll live," he told her, nodding once. "You?"

She licked her lips and nodded. There was a moment of silence before she said, "After...when you were, um...when I..." she took another breath. "I guess I just..."

"You kissed me," he said, his voice wavering between cold and amazed. "Why?"

"Could have something to do with the fact that we almost died," she said, looking away from him. "I was...grateful to be alive, and I almost..." she swallowed hard and turned to look at him again. "I almost lost you," she whispered. "I don't know what I would have done if...if..."

"Don't say it," he broke in, shaking his head. "Do you...I mean, you, uh, you don't regret it, do you? Is it...was it just because we almost..."

"Blew to Kingdom Come?" She eyed him for a moment, trying to decide to tell him the truth or lie. She bit her lip and shook her head, turning away again. She narrowed her eyes, though, hearing him sigh and mumble, "Thank God."

"Liv, I wanted to..." he started, but his words were stopped when the door opened. His eyes shot to the door, and he tried to sit up a bit more when he got a look at who had walked into the room. "Cap," he said, nodding to Cragen.

Cragen nodded back, trying to smile. "How are you two holding up?" he asked.

"The food sucks and we asked for a waterfront view," Olivia joked. "Other than that..." she shrugged and uncrossed her arms. "Did you find out what..."

"I'm not going to sugarcoat this," Cragen said, cutting her off. "We've got a couple of Feds down at the station, including...Agent Porter." He looked directly at Olivia. "He's worried about you, and I don't blame him. Olivia, I wasn't the one that Carter was aiming at." He sighed. "Elliot was right."

Elliot sat up straight, his eyes wide. "Someone's after Liv? Who?"

"I don't know, but I'm not surprised," Cragen said. "The truth is...we were warned about this." He saw Olivia furrow her brow and open her mouth, but he held up a hand, stopping her. "We...does not mean us. Elliot didn't know. I meant, me and..."

"Porter," Elliot snapped. "That fuck, he knew about this and I didn't? I was the first fucking person you should have told! Who the fuck do you think you are, keeping this from me? From her!"

"Watch your tone, Stabler!" Cragen yelled back. "I kept it from you because, knowing you, you'd overreact and get her killed! Porter told me, it was years ago, said that it would happen, never told us when." He looked at Olivia. "I didn't tell you, because..."

"You know me," she said. "I wouldn't have cared. Wouldn't have been any more or less careful. But Elliot...would've become my personal bodyguard or something, making the target on my back even bigger, right? That was your..."

Cragen nodded. "Yeah, exactly," he interrupted. "Anyway, now you know, and now...we have to act." He scratched behind his ear, rubbed his chin hard, and shot a glare at Elliot. "You're not gonna like this." He glanced at Olivia. "You will...you will hate this," he said, pointing at her.

"I'm not going into protective custody," Olivia said, "No way in hell."

"I knew you'd say that. You're not. But you can't just go back to your apartment," Cragen said. "Not alone. So I've already got a team in your building, and a couple of guys in rotation on your street."

"Not alone," Elliot said, scoffing. "So, what. You think she's gonna let Porter..."

"You," Cragen cut in, brandishing his finger from Olivia to Elliot. "Both of you, will stay together, under constant watch. At least until you can walk on your own."

"Jesus," Olivia hissed. "I don't need a babysitter."

Cragen let out a hard, audible grunt. "You think that's what this is? Benson, someone tried to kill you. Twice. I'm not letting it happen again. Now, I know how you both handle situations like this, and I know that you're worried about Elliot's family. I'm taking care of everything. Please, trust me, here."

"Ive been through this," Olivia said, "Putting my life on hold, letting this stop me from doing my job, that's what he wants, whoever the fuck it is!"

"Liv, calm down," Elliot said, as smoothly as he could.

"Fuck you," she said, irritated and unwilling to acknowledge she was also a bit afraid.

"Hey! In case you forgot, he almost took me out, too!" he yelled. "You're not the only one this affects! I've got kids! A family that could be in danger!"

"Because of me!" she fired back, at the same time, pulling the needle out of the back of her hand and throwing the sheet off of her again.

Elliot barked with angry eyes, "I didn't fucking say that!"

"You'd didn't have to say it!" she said, gritting her teeth. She dropped her bare feet to the floor and, with one hand clutching the open backed hospital gown, she tried to stand.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Cragen asked, his tone almost violent, as he ran over to her.

"Leaving," she said, taking a step toward the door, but she seethed in pain, freezing to her spot.

"God, Liv!" Elliot gasped.

"I'm fine," she said to him, her eyes squeezed shut, her jaw still clenched.

"Bullshit," Elliot hissed. "Get back in the damn bed!" He softened when she looked at him, seeing the fear masked by anger in her eyes. "Please? For me?"

She exhaled slowly, and then shuffled back to the bed. "What's your plan?" She looked at Cragen. "I assume you have one," she said, and she ruefully pulled the sheet over her and smacked her pillow hard.

Cragen coughed and rubbed his chin again. "Porter is running..."

"Wait," she said, stopping him. "Who told who, here. I mean, who got the threat? SVU or the FBI?"

"It doesn't matter, Olivia," Cragen replied. "It doesn't, not right..."

"Who?" She asked again, more insistent, and looked into the eyes of her captain. For the first time she saw uncertainty and terror in them.

"They did," Cragen admitted, his shoulders falling. "Porter told me... that he had it handled. That he would keep it from..." he threw a hand up and said, "I knew when that car blew up that my worst fear...was being realized. I called him, and he confirmed that I was living my absolute worst nightmare." He tried to smile at her again, but he felt tears building and a burn behind his eyes. "Olivia, I know how you feel about being independent, never needing anyone to protect you, but this time...let me protect you." He licked his lips and cleared his throat. "And Elliot. If you won't do it for yourself, do it because he..."

"Fine," she said firmly. "Any ideas? Who has nothing better to do than try to turn me into barbecue Benson?"

"A couple," Cragen told her flatly, honestly. "We are looking into all the possibilities and I swear to God, no one is getting as close as they did, Olivia. That's why...I need you to trust me. For once, take the orders, and fall on your sword to keep yourself and your partner alive."

"Captain," she said, taking in how visibly shaken he was, "What's really going on, here?"

He didn't answer her. He looked toward Elliot and said, "Your family is safe. I promise you that. Your wife...is here, actually."

"What? Kathy's here?" He looked a bit more sick as he eyes Olivia cautiously.

"I didn't give her specifics, but she's waiting for the okay to come in here," Cragen said. "I called her, told her you were injured on the job, but it wasn't serious, she wanted to come see for herself." He pointed to the door. "Those cops aren't leaving," he said, and he looked at Olivia, "They have orders to keep everyone who isn't on a very short list out...and keep you in, so I'm sending a nurse in with Kathy to hook you back up to that," he said, pointing a finger at her IV stand. He moved closer to her bed, picked up the small finger cuff, squeezed it, and held it out to her.

Rolling her eyes, she stuck her finger into it, felt it clamp down gently, and nodded at Cragen. "Okay," she conceded.

Cragen smiled and looked at each of them. "I'll be back," he said, and he left with a little less tension than he'd arrived.

When the door was closed, she looked at Elliot. "Now, I think I do regret it."

"What?" he asked, hurt. "Regret...what...kissing me?"

"Kathy's here, you just told Cragen..." she paused. "Well, it sounds like you're heading for a..."

"Divorce," he finished for her. "That's where we're heading. You think I...Christ, Liv! Yeah, I'm scared! She is, technically, still my wife, so if someone is after me..."

"They're after me," she said, her eyes narrowed as she looked at him.

"Why do you think I'm so fucking terrified?" His voice was soft, his eyes upturned. "I know they're safe, now, but you...Liv...I don't know what I would've done if something happened to you, either. Like you were trying to say before, I wouldn't be okay, and the fact that someone is still out there, waiting...and I can't..."

"I'm sorry," she whispered to him.

"Shit, for what?" He shook his head. "None of this is your fault, and I'm not...I'm not sorry. In fact, I...I would really like to..."

"Elliot?" a woman spoke from the opening door. Kathy walked in, not even looking toward Olivia. "What happened?" She walked fast, stopping at the side of his bed. She took his hand and gave him a long look.

He pulled his hand out of hers and let himself fall back down to the mattress. He watched a nurse reattach Olivia's IV as he spoke. "It's just a sprained ankle, you didn't have to come down here for this." He cleared his throat. "I'm fine."

"Elliot, don't lie to me," Kathy said with a roll of her eyes. "There are two cops outside and Cragen told

me to take the kids to my mother's house for the weekend. Now, what happened?"

"Nothing," he said, again, more certain. He waited for the nurse to leave, keeping Olivia in focus out of the corner of his eye. "We were on a case, guy got away, it's nothing you need to worry about. Just...take them to your moms, okay?"

"Elliot, come with us," Kathy said, reaching for his hand again. "That partner of yours can take care of herself for a few days, let her deal with the..."

"Hi, Kathy," Olivia said, sickeningly sweet, waving at her as she turned sharply. "I'm fine, thanks for your concern."

Kathy paled. "Oh, uh, well, I..."

"Yeah," Olivia scoffed, "whatever." She gave her pillow another thwack and laid back, trying to ignore her partner, and her feelings.

"Look, Kathy, there's nothing you need to worry about, and you know..." he paused, taking a breath, "Even if I wasn't in a sling, in this room, I, uh, I wouldn't be going with you. You need to think about what you want to do with the house, tell the kids, and I think it's best if I'm not there for that."

Kathy looked wounded, letting his hand fall from hers, and she let out a disbelieving huff. "Well, I thought that this..."

"A couple bumps and bruises is not going to make me reconsider the decision we've made," he cut in. "In fact, it...what happened, here, it made me even more convinced that it's the absolute best thing for me. For...for all of us."

Kathy sighed, but she nodded and said, "I know, you're...deep down, I know you're right. If you're sure you're okay, I... am going to get the kids. I'll call you when we get to my mother's."

He smiled at her. "Kiss the kids for me, tell them I'm okay," he told her. He didn't turn away when she kissed his cheek, but he didn't kiss hers back. He simply said, "Take care of them, and yourself."

Olivia held in a snort and did not even wave as Kathy blew passed her again. She looked over at him and said, "Her concern is truly touching."

He laughed and said, "I think my concern for you more than makes up for it." He took a breath. "You know, I'm actually...looking forward to spending some quality time with you. It's not for the best reason, but it's...something I think we need."

She yawned as she nodded. "Maybe," she agreed, lowering her head to her pillow. "I'm...I'm sorry, I'm just really tired." She closed her eyes and yawned again.

"Sweet dreams, Liv," he said, smiling. Another phrase hung, unvoiced, on his lips, as he settled back in his own bed and watched her chest rise and fall slowly. When he was sure she was asleep, he looked over out the window. "Try it again, you son of a bitch," he said. "I dare you." He cracked his knuckles and a vein popped in his forehead. "It'll be the last fucking thing you ever do."

 **A/N: Elliot knows?**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** **Shades of grey wherever I go, The more I find out the less that I know. Black and white is how it should be, But shades of grey are the colors I see. – Billy Joel**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

He watched her, the way she tried to shrink and conceal herself from him in the corner of the hospital room, as if he hadn't seen her nearly naked a thousand times. He ran a hand down his face and sighed harshly, licked his lips when he got a glimpse of skin, and decided then that he had to move. He worked his crutches into place and leaned forward, hobbling his way over to her. "Don't do this," he said, a slight air of dominance in his voice.

She stiffened, turned to look at him over her shoulder, and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

He steadied his crutches under his arms and balanced on them, moving his hands toward her collar. "Nothing has to…I mean, you don't need to back away from me, like this. Not when this whole thing should be…"

She rolled her eyes and moved away from him, fastening the last button of her shirt. "Do you have everything? I really don't want to have to come back here. It's bad enough we have to be chauffeured…"

"Why are you acting like that?" he asked, his eyes narrow.

She looked at him for a moment, silent and severe, and then she looped her hand through the handles of two plastic bags. "Come on," she said. She moved, ignoring his attempts at figuring out the source of her nervous tension, and pulled the door open, holding it for him. "Hey, Turner and Hooch, help him, huh?"

One of the uniformed officers gave her a disgusted expression. "Hooch was a dog," he said, begrudgingly offering some assistance to Elliot.

"Your point?" Olivia quipped back, taking her time as she walked beside Elliot. Her right hand shot to her side, she seethed a bit as she moved, and she said, "Elevator. He can't take the stairs."

The second officer gave an affirmative hum. "We got that, Detective," he said sharply. He led the small group to the nearest elevator, pushing the last button, the one on the very bottom. "We're taking the service exit, you'll be safe."

Olivia grumbled and fell back against the wall of the elevator. "Shit," she spat.

"Liv," Elliot said to her, leaning closer to her. He felt wounded, a mix of hurt and fury building, when she moved away from him. He lowered his voice and hissed, "What the hell is your problem."

She shook her head, inhaled quickly through her nose, and looked away from him. "How are the kids?" she asked.

He scoffed. Irritation, worry, and a bit of wounded pride came out together when he said, "They're fine, it's you that seems to have a problem." He balked, hearing a sniffle, watching her finger discreetly swipe a falling tear away from the corner of her eye. He softened, grew closer to her again, and asked, "Honey, what's wrong?"

The doors couldn't open fast enough for her, and once they did, she pushed everyone else out of the way and walked, unguarded, toward the waiting black truck. Two armed officers helped her in, and she stared out the window, watching Elliot hop and crutch his way to the vehicle. She felt so unbelievably guilty, for so many reasons.

He almost died, because of her. She kissed him, a married man, a husband and father. The knots in her stomach tightened the more she thought about it, and she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from him as possible to keep him and his family safe. Keep them happy. She turned away from him as he slid into the car beside her, but she couldn't avoid his touch. She looked down, staring helplessly at his hand cupped over her knee. "Don't…"

"I know what you're doing," he interrupted softly. "Liv, knock it off." His voice sounded beseeching and weak. "This isn't your fault, no one blames you."

"Kathy blames me," she spat, her teeth gnashing down on the inside of her cheek. "She blames me for a lot of things."

His head tilted a bit, and as the truck began to move, he toppled into her. He gripped her arm, keeping his body pressed against hers, not moving even though he could. "You talked to her? When?"

"This morning," she said, staring out the window, watching the colors of the city blur together in thin striped brushstrokes, not hazarding any glances at him. "You were with your doctor, she came in, and I guess she thought…she took the time to give me a piece of her mind. I didn't know how much she'd been biting her tongue, until now. Guess she figures, you know, you're getting divorced, she doesn't have to pretend to be nice."

"What did she say to you?" he asked, his hand slipping down her arm. He felt her shiver, tremble at his touch, and it made his ego, and other parts of him, swell. "Talk to me."

She winced, having bit a little too hard, the inside of her cheek bleeding now. "Nothing that…nothing that wasn't true." She pressed her lips together and took a breath. "I'm sorry. About everything. I'm sorry for being the reason your marriage failed, for being the reason that you almost got blown up, for wrecking your life, okay? I'm so fucking sorry."

"God," he breathed, lifting a hand to cup her chin. He pulled her face toward his, staring intently at her widened eyes as he spoke. "None of that is fucking true, Olivia. You didn't wreck anything, you…fuck, you made my life so much…" he couldn't get it out. He shook his head and his lips curled into a small, almost obscene smile. "You changed me," he said. "You make me a better cop than I ever thought I could be, every day with you by my side, I learn something, and I go harder, and I move faster, and I get stronger." He let his hand fall gently, grazing the skin of her neck. He grinned, feeling her twitch. "You make me a better father, you know that? Because of you, I am a lot more calm and I have a deeper understanding, a deep appreciation of my kids, who all love you, by the way."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "We need to turn around," she said, "You need another CT Scan."

He chuckled, smiling a bit broader. "And you…you make me smile, laugh, so much more than I ever used to. You help me see the good in the world, through the black and grey, you give me bright, beautiful color, Liv. You make me a better man. My marriage…didn't fail because of you. It failed, because of who I am…because of you. I outgrew the need to just exist, and I learned things about myself, because of you, that convinced me it was time to go after things I wanted, so badly, and that meant finally letting go of a loveless, lifeless marriage that was really more of an obligation than a relationship." He moved his thumbs, swiping the pads of them under her eyes, brushing away tears he didn't think she knew had formed. "How can you possibly be sorry for any of that?"

She stared back at him, unblinking, and sniffled. "I didn't…you never…"

"Because," he interrupted, "I didn't think I had to tell you. I thought it was obvious. You know how to read me, Liv. Did I really need to tell you all of this?"

"Would've been nice," she said with a one-shouldered shrug, giving a short laugh.

He laughed, too, and dropped both of his hands to her lap, finding her fingers, and curling them in his palms. "Well, now you know, don't you?"

She nodded, but she pulled her hands out of his. "I still…maybe we shouldn't, um…can we just pretend that…"

"Detectives," one of the cops in the front of the truck turned and said, "We're here. That grey car on the corner, the yellow taxi right in front of your building, and the red sports car on the other end of the street are our guys. They'll be watching from all angles. There are cops in the apartment next door to yours, Detective Benson, and surveillance in the building across the street. Captain Cragen will be sending someone to bring you burner phones, and you will be heavily guarded if you need to go…"

"This is exactly what he wants," Olivia sighed, a hand shooting to her forehead. "This is exactly…what I don't want." She let out another deep-set sigh, turning her attention toward the officer who'd appeared by her door, waiting to help her into her building.

Silence filled the spaces between Olivia, Elliot, and their escorts as they walked into Olivia's building. They took the elevator up to her floor, and they had to wait for two uniformed officers to clear the hallway and her apartment before letting her inside of it. She mumbled an abrupt and cranky thanks and then slammed her door, hard, knocking a framed photo off of the wall.

It shattered as it hit the floor, but she didn't seem to care. She ripped off her jacket, threw the two bags of stuff brought back from the hospital into a corner, and then turned, with a clenched jaw, and punched the wall to her left.

"Liv!" Elliot yelled, watching in awe as she pulled her fist back out through the hole she'd made in the drywall. He walked, as fast as he could on crutches, over to her and pulled her toward him.

"Off," she bit back, brushing his arms away from her. "Just…please…I need a minute, here."

Frowning, he reached for her hand, beginning to redden and bruise, and he held it in his, grazing over her knuckles with his fingertips. "I think I'm rubbing off on you."

"Funny," she snapped, pulling her hand back and walking away from him. "This is complete bullshit, Elliot. All of it. I don't need them to protect me like I'm the fucking Queen of England! We don't even know if anyone's really out there trying to get me! This could be someone going after the whole unit, and Porter's fucking paranoia…"

"It's not," he said, cutting her off. He rested his crutches against the side of the couch and hopped toward her. He wrapped an arm around her and tugged, bringing her with him as he sat on the sofa. "Liv, I…I overheard Cragen…talking to Porter in the hall, last night."

"Who?" she asked, her head lifting and her eyes focused on his. "Elliot, damn it, if you know who's been…"

"Not for sure," he said, holding up hand and bending his head slightly. "Just…someone they're looking into, someone… someone we thought…"

"Just tell me who the fuck it is!" she yelled.

"Crandall," he said, watching for her reaction. "He…he got out. I don't know how, but he did, and he wants his city back. He can't regain control if we're out there…"

"We?" she interrupted, shaking her head. "So it's not just me, it's…"

"No, it's you, but it's…because of me," he told her. "That's why this isn't really your fault." He scratched at his chin, pulled her closer to him, and turned to get more comfortable as he said, "I heard Porter telling Cragen…when they locked him up, he threatened to kill me. And then he said…that he would torture me first, by taking away the only thing that mattered to me." He looked into her eyes and brushed her hair behind her ear with his left hand. "He thought…because you were with me and because we were…half-naked and because I was…very…obviously…" he cleared his throat. "He assumed we were…more than partners. A lot more."

She looked at him, into his eyes, finding and ignoring the emotions in them. "Tell me again how I didn't ruin your entire life."

He laughed and moved closer to her. "He's not working alone," he said. "He got to people. Other cops, colleagues, maybe even other people who have it out for us. But do not, for a single second, blame yourself for any of this. It's me it has to do with, and it's because I…"

A loud and determined knock on the front door stopped his words and startled Olivia. She jumped back a bit and composed herself before sighing and getting off of the couch to answer the door. She gripped her gun, readying it, and looked through the small peep-hole before opening the door slowly. "Hey, Captain," she said, stepping aside to let Cragen into her apartment.

"You two okay?" Cragen asked, wringing his hands together. He shot a glance over at Elliot, and when he was satisfied that he hadn't interrupted anything, he looked back at Olivia.

She nodded. "Alive," she shrugged. "How long do we have to…"

"As long as it takes," Cragen cut in, a tone in his voice she'd never heard before, firm. "Here," he said, handing her a small, black, flip-top cell phone. He turned and tossed a second one to Elliot. "Just in case."

"You think someone bugged my phone?" she asked, laughing in bitter amusement.

"Like I said, just in case," Cragen repeated. He then handed her a credit card, two folded pieces of paper, and a single key. "If anything happens, you two, get outta here. Don't wait for me, don't call anyone, just go. This key…is to a blue Jeep, parked right outside. Use your undercover identities, if you need them, which I'm hoping you won't."

Olivia's breath halted, she looked at her captain, and then to Elliot, and finally back to Captain Cragen. "You think he's gonna try again?"

Cragen exhaled. "We can't be sure. Porter's right next door, I'm with Fin across the street until five, then he'll be with Munch. You've got half the squad outside, watching your asses, so this should all be over…" he looked up. "You know who it is?"

Olivia nodded. "He heard you and Porter talking," she said, raising a shaking finger to Elliot. "We know."

"How'd he get out, Cap?" Elliot asked, shifting in his seat. "How the hell did he…"

"Get out?" Cragen questioned, and then he folded his arms. "Who do you think.."

"Crandall," Elliot interrupted. "I could have sworn that's who you…"

"Eric Crandall," Cragen said, stopping him, "Doesn't have the balls or the brains to pull shit like this. No, Elliot, this is a bit deeper than some punk ass trafficker you two got a little too testy with, okay?"

Elliot couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Cap, I heard you talking to Porter. His name came up, I heard you!"

"You heard me tell Porter that Crandall had a hand in it, yes," Cragen snapped, his pallid face contorting in fear and anger. "Damn it, Elliot, the man is holding a grudge, but he doesn't have this kind of pull! Three cops were in on it! Three!" He pointed to Olivia and yelled louder, "Eric Crandall is only one of the humps you pissed off that this fucker has ties to!"

"Don't yell at her like that!" Elliot roared, rising to his feet. Sprained ankle be damned, he stormed over and stood protectively between Cragen and Olivia. "She's been through enough! The last thing she needs is…"

"Yeah, right, sorry," Cragen conceded, backing away. "We're close, that's all you need to know. But if anything happens…" his shoulders rose and fell, defeated. "You're gone, understand?"

Elliot reached behind him, taking hold of Olivia's waist. "Cap, please. Just tell us who…"

"Her father," Cragen barely spoke, the phrase coming out like a croak. "I'll explain…when I can. You two…try to relax, and just…let me do my job."

They watched Cragen leave, confused and scared, and then turned to each other. "It's not his job to protect you," Elliot whispered to her. "It's mine." He held her gaze for another moment, as if coming to some epic conclusion. Without thinking any more of it, without processing what it could lead to, he let his hands fly to her face, cupping it as he bent his head and kissed her, fiercely and fully. A soft gasp escaped between her parted lips, being caught in his mouth, and she gave in, caving to the need for him.

The line that had been drawn, so darkly, between them was gone completely, now. There was no denying it. And the grey area they had been swimming in, the barely balanced blend of partner and friend and something more, was now changing form, changing color, and changing for good.

 **A/N: Who is her father? What happens now?**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** **I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things are never black and white, things are very much shades of grey. – Brian Molko**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

Olivia was balancing on the side of her bathtub, a fluffy towel wrapped around her freshly scrubbed, exfoliated body, with one leg bent, covered in shaving foam. Carefully, she dragged her razor up one side, trying to concentrate on something other than the shift in her reality. She was so tuned out, she didn't hear the knock on the bathroom door, and when it opened, startling her, she jerked up and nicked her leg. "Ow, damn it, Elliot!" she gritted out through a clenched jaw, cupping over the part of her leg that was now bleeding.

"Oh, shit," he said, wide-eyed, "Sorry!" He leaned his crutches against the door, pulled a towel off of the rack on the wall and knelt by her side, moving her hand out of the way and pressing the cotton to the small cut. "I knocked, and when you didn't answer, I thought…" he shook his head, and then he slowly looked up at her. Without speaking, he took the razor out of her hand, shifted his weight to get onto the floor, and slowly, gently, he placed the razor at her ankle and dragged it up her leg.

Olivia was too stunned to speak, so she watched in awe as Elliot finished shaving her leg. He would lean over her after every stroke and rinse the razor in the tub. He was careful, and she could hear soft, appreciative moans coming from him as he worked. Finding her voice, she said, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" he quipped back to her. He wet his hands and smoothed them down her leg, rinsing the remaining foam off of her skin. He gently pushed on her knee, flattening her left leg, and he scooped his hand behind her right knee, pulling it up. He reached up, grabbing the bottle of foam off of the sink, squirted a decent amount into his hand, and then coated her leg.

She tilted her head, watching this happen, watching him work. "Do you this often?" she asked, one arched brow giving away her slight inquisitive jealousy.

He shook his head as he wiped his hands on the towel. "Never did this before, actually, I just…" he cleared his throat. "You have amazing legs." He leaned forward a bit and began to shave the right one as he had done the left. "Long, strong, so damn sexy."

She blushed, she knew it. She could feel the heat build in her cheeks. "Um, thank you." It went quiet. In the silence, it became palpably obvious that this was the most intimate moment they'd shared, and that it had a much deeper meaning. "El, your ankle…you shouldn't be…"

"It doesn't hurt," he interrupted. He ran the razor over her skin, following the blade with his eyes. He licked his lips when he reached her thigh, wondering briefly if she shaved any higher. He cleared his throat, catching himself staring at the peek of skin under her towel, and he forced himself to move again.

Unintentionally, and surprisingly, Olivia felt the heat from her cheeks travel throughout her entire body. She tingled wherever he touched her, and she had caught him looking, staring. She trembled a bit when he ran his hands over her leg again, and there was no denying how incredibly aroused the experience had made her.

Elliot dried his hands and then dragged the towel over both of her legs. He skimmed his palms up and down her silky smooth skin and smirked at her. "How'd I do?"

She didn't trust herself to speak, she just nodded at him, taking his hand as he offered it to her. She held it as he got to his feet, grimacing when his ankle had to bend, and allowed him to pull her up off of the edge of the tub.

He leaned over, still holding her hand, and pulled the drain plug, emptying the tub. He looked at her, his eyes scanned her from crown to toe, and he licked his lips again. "I know I never tell you this…and up until now, I…I didn't…" he swallowed hard. "You have an incredible body."

She looked away from him. "You can only see my legs," she said, rolling her eyes.

He chuckled. "You think I never paid attention? How many times have we had to change in front of each other? How many cases did we work, undercover, where I got a pretty damn good look at you in…things that covered less than that towel?" He moved closer to her, leaned in, and whispered in her ear, "I have had dreams about your body…about you…that would make your head spin."

She shivered at his words, more wetness forming between the legs he'd just shaved. "Elliot," she began, but his lips stopped her words.

The kiss was hot, deep, and his left hand clutched hers as his right flew to the back of her head, pressing it closer to his, making the kiss that much more intense. He pulled away first, keeping his forehead against hers. He slid the hand behind her head to the top of the towel, wrapped his fingers around it, and lightly tugged. In a panting whisper he said, "You're the most beautiful woman I have ever…"

A loud knock on the door drowned out what he was saying. She clutched the towel before it could fall, her eyes wide. "Who the hell…"

"Stay here," he told her, turning fast and heading out of the bathroom. He cringed as he limped, having forgotten his crutches. He made it to the door and looked through the peep hole. "Fucking asshole," he spat harshly, unlocking and opening the door. "This better be good, Porter, because I was just about to…"

"Is she here?" Porter asked, not caring about what Elliot had to say.

Elliot shot him a look. "You think she climbed through the ceiling? Of course, she's here, moron."

Dean Porter looked around the room, and then craned his neck to look down the hall. "Where is she?"

"Bathroom," Elliot answered, his eyes narrow now. "What are you…"

"What I'm about to tell you, Stabler, does not get back to her, are we clear?" Porter's bony finger was in Elliot's face, his chest puffed out, attempting to look threatening.

With a disgusted expression on his face, Elliot slapped Porter's hand away and said, "I've never kept anything from her, I'm not gonna start now. You tell me anything, you know I'm gonna tell her."

"Not this," Porter said seriously. "Stabler, you need to…"

"I'm not keeping anything from my…partner," Elliot spoke over him.

Porter noticed the hesitation, his face twisted into a scowl, and he lowered his voice. "Fine. Then get her in here."

"Liv?" Elliot called loudly, glaring at Porter. "Could you come out here, please?"

Now clad in navy blue NYPD sweatpants, which hung a little low on her hips, and a matching NYPD tee shirt, Olivia padded barefoot into the room. She was rubbing her head and hair with towel. "What's going on?" She stepped up next to Elliot and shot Porter a questioning look.

Elliot, because he wanted to see Porter's reaction and because he had a grave need to touch her, looped an arm around her waist and toyed with the band of her pants. "Porter's got something important to tell us."

Porter pursed his lips as he rolled a few kinks out of his neck. Seeing them like that made him irritated. "We got a lead," he said. His eyes dropped, and so did his jaw, when he saw the fingers of Elliot's hand dip lower into Olivia's pants, drawing circles on the skin of her hip. He heard Olivia's light gasp and it tortured him. "My department has been…working a cold case. One we thought was closed, years ago, and the way it came up…"

"I am not one of your lemmings, Porter," Olivia spat. "Just tell me, flat out, what you got."

"I was in the middle of an investigation, a serial killer, spanning several states," Porter began. "He was a slippery son of a bitch, never left enough evidence behind to get a solid ID…until six months ago." He took a breath, let his gaze drop to Olivia's hip, and he reddened as he watched Elliot's fingers swirl again against her skin. "Blood under one of the victim's nails, uh, when we ran it, it…we got a hit. Nothing solid, just a familial connection. To you."

Olivia stilled, only moving when she felt Elliot's hand flatten out and palm her side, pressing her into him.

Elliot turned, dropping his head into the crook of her neck, and whispered, "I'm right here."

She swallowed back and nodded, turning into him a bit more, and then looked at Porter again. "I thought…Simon, I mean, we had…"

"Yeah, him, too," Porter said. "Hollister wasn't the guy. Olivia, my guys looked into it, when this" happened. He isn't Simon's father, either. His wife, well, she couldn't remember when you talked to her, but she was another victim. Joe stayed with her, but he..."

"He couldn't handle Simon not being his, and that's what led to the abuse," Olivia said, realizing, understanding.

Porter nodded. "All I can say, now, is I'm sorry, but…" he shook his head and waved a hand. "Anyway, we tracked him to the DC area, where he left two more victims and a paper trail. We got his prints, we got his name. We had him cornered in Maryland, I had him dead to rights. The bastard slipped through my fingers again, but not before sitting through an interrogation. During the questioning, I…I thought I could rope him into a confession if I threw all of his old victims at him, I brought up your mother, and you." He scratched his head again, sighing, and he said, "I thought, if he realized he had kids out there, one of whom was a cop who was hot on his trail…"

Elliot's eyes grew dark as his face took on an almost homicidal expression. "You what? You motherfucker, you led him right to her!"

"That was never my intention!" Porter barked back. "It was an interrogation tactic! You would have done the same thing! I didn't know his lawyer would get him off on a technicality! And I sure as hell didn't think he'd go after Olivia!"

"So this whole thing…" Olivia crossed her arms, sinking even deeper into Elliot's protective hold, "This is all happening because he thinks I'm running point? He thinks I'm after him, so he's trying to keep me from…"

"Partly," Porter said, stopping her. He rubbed his chin, contemplating divulging the rest of his information. "Olivia, he has ties to this city. To the people in it. He has…connections to the NYPD, people in his pocket, and I am going to tell you why, as long as you promise me you won't ask me who he is, because I can't tell you. I can't say no to you, either."

Olivia took a quivering breath, felt Elliot's grip on her tighten, and she looked down t her carpet as she nodded.

"He's an FBI agent," Porter said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "That's how he got away with everything, he knew how to clean up his mess, and he knew how to cover his tracks. He immersed himself into his own investigation to keep people from digging too deep, and when he had to travel for work, that's when…"

"Jesus Christ," she exclaimed, cutting him off and laughing to keep from crying. "Wow, so…this explains…a lot, actually, but if he was in the system this whole time, why did…"

"He wasn't," Porter said, not letting her finish. "Liv, when he became an agent, they didn't even have a DNA database. By the time it became policy to log government officials and law enforcement, he was so high up in the ranks, no one questioned him when he said he'd registered. His prints were in the system, though, and that's how we found out who he was, but until then, he was untouchable."

Olivia pushed herself away from Elliot, biting her bottom lip. "This is just wonderful," she said. She felt the tears starting to fall, and she knew she couldn't stop them. She sniffled as she began to walk backward away from the two men in her living room. She shook her head and looked down, and as she turned to head toward her bedroom, she spoke. "I'm even more of a monster than I thought."

Porter stood, slumping, feeling guilty as he caught Elliot's hateful glare. He watched Elliot run after Olivia and closed his eyes. "That's why I didn't want to tell her," he said to himself, and he let himself out, making sure the door locked behind him.

 **A/N: …okay? And?**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** **When we start to let ourselves feel the things of which we've been afraid, we start to notice all of the varied shades of grey twixt the black and white. – A.L. Bigsby**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"Liv," Elliot called, almost whimpering. He knocked on the door twice more, before digging into his pocket and pulling out a pocket knife. He mumbled something under his breath as he knelt down and began pushing a screwdriver into the emergency latch in the middle of the knob. Before he could push it all the way through, though, the knob turned and the door opened.

"Sorry," she said, watching him straighten up. "I just…I needed to be…"

"You didn't want me to see you cry," he whispered, brushing his thumbs under his eyes. "You never have to hide from me, Liv."

She nodded, and then pushed the door open a bit more. She led Elliot to the bed, toward the open box and scattered pictures that she'd laid out on the mattress. "What was Hollister doing with these, El? They were in his house. If I wasn't his daughter…"

"You heard Porter," he cut in, his ringless left hand toying with her hair. "This guy, he's an FBI agent, he probably found out that Simon got into some legal trouble. When he had to give a sample…I guess your…the man who raped your mother, knew that eventually he could be tied to you, so he…"

"Planted this stuff?" Olivia questioned, looking up at him. "You think he knew I'd go looking…" she licked her lips and shook her head.

"I think he knew that Simon had a history of getting mixed up in things that would most likely involve you," he said, alluding to the false accusations of rape that once plagued Olivia's brother.

She looked at him, and then slowly nodded. "Makes sense. If I found this with Simon's dad's things, I would know, and then I would drop…" she snapped back to Elliot. "He wanted me to stop looking! He would have left me the hell alone if Porter hadn't reopened the case!"

Elliot eased both hands down onto her shoulders, rubbing lightly, and he made low shushing noises. "Let Porter handle it, okay? You…you and me…we're stuck here, but we're safe. I'd rather be safe, unable to do anything about this, than out there working the case that could get you killed." He kissed her temple, brushing her hair back, and he whispered something into her ear.

She looked at him, stunned eyes and parted lips, and in lieu of words, she dropped her head to his chest. "Who am I, Elliot?" she asked, silent tears falling again, and landing on his shirt.

"You," he said, shoving the photos and clippings as far to the side as he could get them without them falling, "Are Olivia Benson." He pulled her up to her pillows. "Brilliant woman, bad-ass detective, smart, sexy…" he looked into her eyes and drew closer. "So beautiful."

She held her breath as she stared into his eyes, her own crossing the closer he came to her. Before his lips could touch hers, she jerked back, deeper into the pillow. "Elliot, what…"

He paused. "You…you don't want me to…?"

She cut him off with a question of her own. "Why are you…just…why?"

He smiled. It was the same cocky, self-assured, proud smirk he always gave her, knowing he was irresistible. "You really don't know?" He let his nose nudge hers a bit, and he felt her breath hit his lips, sending a chill down his spine. "After all this time?"

She closed her eyes, shivers making their way down her entire body, her blood running cold. "I just…I don't wanna be…"

"You really think you would be?" As he asked, his lips brushed against hers, igniting a definite spark.

She let her eyes flutter open, meeting his again, and she found exactly what she needed in them. "No," she whispered.

He brushed his nose against hers again, and then finally moved that final centimeter, pressing his lips to hers.

A muffled yelp came from somewhere between her throat and mouth, caught in the space between their lips. When she raised her arms and let them loop around his neck, though, that space ceased to exist. She gasped silently as her lips parted slightly, caving to his pleas for admission.

He moaned, then, too, savoring her taste, trying to memorize the texture of her tongue, the flavor of her lips. He'd waited so long for this moment, and it seemed like it would never come. An answered prayer and given blessing, is what this was. His lungs began to hurt, and he knew he needed to stop, and breathe.

Panting, her lips swelling and stinging, her eyes still shut tightly, she said, almost solemnly, "Elliot."

"Yeah," he said, his lips still only a hair away from hers as he tried to catch his breath. He ran one hand over her head, brushing her hair back, still smiling at her.

"Are we…" she paused, opening her eyes. She let her bottom lip scrape between her teeth before biting down a bit too hard on the inside corner of it.

He swallowed, nerves getting the better of him, and he asked, "Is that what you want?"

She pressed her lips together, thinking about the changes this would mean, the rifts and fissures it would cause in their lives, in their careers, in their hearts. Like him, she'd been praying for this, waiting for him to make some kind of move before she exploded, but this was far beyond anything she'd imagined. This held more tumultuous emotion that she'd given it credit for, more of herself was wrapped up in him, in this, than she'd anticipated, and it could never and would never be a one night stand, just to get him out of her system. That kiss alone proved it, and solidified how well and truly screwed they were.

"Liv," he panted, "Answer me. I don't know how much longer I can control myself, here, like this, and if this isn't what you want, then I need to…"

It was her turn to silence him. Her lips met his in a kiss that rivaled the one before, escalating in desperate need. He gripped the sheets beneath him with one hand as the other fisted and tangled in her hair, pulling gently. He felt her nails scratch down his back and a quiet rumble rolled through him.

She lost herself in him, letting him gain complete control of the moment. She felt his hand skimming up the side of her body, under her tee shirt, almost reaching, so incredibly close to her left nipple. She held her breath, preparing to cry out for him, but just as his thumb brushed over her tender skin, a loud and insistent knock on her door broke them apart.

"Fucking hell," he cursed, dropping his head to hers. "I really don't wanna move," he said. He looked down at her and brushed her hair back again. "It took me too damn long to get here."

She smiled up at him. "I know it did," she whispered. She craned her neck, kissed him one more time, and gently pushed him upward, easing him off of her. "I should…" she pointed to the doorway leading to the hall.

He licked his lips, nodding. As he got to his feet, he grumbled and tried to hide his very obvious arousal. He tugged on his sweatpants, hoping to separate the fabric from his skin. Limping after her, he called out, "Don't open it until I get there!"

She rolled her eyes as she reached for the knob, but the panic in his voice resonated, and she leaned in to look through the peephole. "El, there's…" she turned toward him, "There's no one out there."

Elliot furrowed his brow, grabbed his gun off of the coffee table, and readied it as he headed for the door. He opened it slowly, peering his head out. He didn't see anyone in the hall, at all. Still steadying his gun, he wobbled next door and knocked, turning his head to look up and down the hall. When the door in front of him opened, he rolled his eyes. "You," he chuckled. "You, uh, you didn't come over and knock on the door, did you?"

"No," Porter said, shaking his head. "Why, did someone…hold on." He turned around and spoke briefly to a man in a suit, sitting behind a large computer monitor.

Elliot turned his head slightly, straining to hear what they were talking about, but straightened up fast when Porter came back over to him. "Get her, get out of here, now," he said. "These two will go with you." He turned to a uniformed officer. "Fire escape, make sure no one gets to them before they get to that car."

"What?" Elliot asked, but Porter had pushed him back into the hall.

"Just go!" Porter yelled, slamming the door behind him as he ran down the hall, checking to see that his gun was loaded and ready.

"Liv," Elliot yelled over to her. "Come on, we gotta…"

"I heard him," she said. "The Jeep that Cragen…"

"Yeah," he said, grabbing her hand. He led her down the hall, toward the large window, and he watched as one of the officers escorting them opened it wide. He took a breath before helping her out the fire escape.

"Your ankle," she warned, worried he wouldn't be able to climb down the narrow metal ladder.

"It's fine, baby, just go," he said, nodding. He followed her every step, and once they hit the ground, he grabbed her hand, and even though it hurt like hell, he ran with her toward the Jeep their captain had commissioned for them, specifically for this occasion. He fished around in the pocket of his pants, finding the key Cragen had given him. He unlocked the car, letting go of her hand only so that she could get into the vehicle. He started the car before pulling on his seatbelt. "Hey, do you have…"

"Gun, badge, wallet, the phone Cragen left us," she interrupted, nodding. "You?"

"Wallet, gun, and badge," he chuckled. "God bless sweatpants." He smirked, taking her hand and linking their fingers. He cupped the gear shift and pulled out of the parking spot, not risking a look in the rear view mirror. He heard her sigh and looked at her as he changed lanes. "What's the matter?" he asked. "I mean, besides the obvious."

Olivia swiped her hair behind her ear. "Where are we going?"

His brows knitted together, and he realized he had no idea. "Um…" he thought for a moment, and then he noticed the blinking button on the console's screen. He tapped it, and the GPS started to load a pre-programmed address. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

"All right, Cragen," she said, chuckling. She yawned and stretched, and something over her shoulder caught her eye. "El, look," she said, pulling a red duffel bag up off the floor of the back seat. She set it down on her lap and unzipped it, and inside she found exactly what she'd thought it was. "Passports, ID's, credit cards, cash," she listed, but then one eyebrow rose high and she smirked. "Uh, these aren't…" she looked up at him. "I think we're supposed to be related."

"What?" he asked, laughing at the absurdity. "No, you're Rachel Martin, I'm Greg Elliot."

"Martin," she said, holding up what was supposed to be his ID. "Greg Martin." She looked down, searching through the rest of the bag. Birth certificates, always handy, and…oh. Oh, my God," she said softly, and then she went completely silent.

Elliot was still smiling, his eyes on the road. "What? Cragen didn't fuck with us and make you, like, my daughter or something, did he?"

She shook her head, knowing he couldn't even see her, and she said, barely above a whisper, "Your wife."

 **A/N: …okay? And? And yes, I am taking some liberties with the timeline in the actual show, for the sake of this story. Isn't that what fanfiction is for?**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** **"The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable." ― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

Elliot sat on the edge of the bed, watching Olivia intently. Her hands worked fast, first dipping into a frosted jar and scooping up a dollop of what looked to him like pearly white cool whip. He smirked, watching her rub her hands together and then smooth the cream over her face and neck, massaging it into her skin with slow circles. It was as if he was trying to commit the process to memory. Well, if he was being honest, he was. It was something he imagined doing for her, if only to have a reason for touching her.

His brows furrowed, then, as he watched her close the jar of moisturizer and then reach for a small, blue bottle. She opened it, dipped one finger into the gel, and dabbed it underneath her right eye. He raised one brow, watching her do the same to her left. "What…what are you doing?" he finally asked.

She turned, stunned, as if just realizing he was there. "Huh?"

"All that," he said, pointing a finger and waving it around in a circle.

She looked confused for a moment, but then answered, "Oh, um, moisturizer, night cream, eye cream…"

"Why?" he interrupted. He got off the bed and walked over to her, ran his hands through her hair, and said, "You don't need any of that shit. You are so incredibly beautiful, and I don't see why you think you need to…"

"Elliot," she said, stopping him and swatting his hands away from her. "Stop it. You're not really my husband, you don't have to…"

He cut her off again. "I'm just being honest," he snapped. "I've thought it, every day, since the first time I met you."

She smiled, looked away from him, and said, "Well, thanks, but all this…keeps it that way." She laughed, but held up the jar of moisturizer. "Seriously, there's a lot of healthy stuff in this. Vitamins, minerals, deep cleansing oils, acne and dark spot treatments, toners, stuff for wrinkles and fine-lines so I don't look as old as I feel," she listed, laughing again. "Not to mention, it feels incredible." She thought for a moment. "Come here," she said to him, reopening the jar.

"Oh, no," he chuckled, backing away. "No way."

"El, just come here," she repeated. "Please?" She batted her eyes at him and smiled proudly when she watched him roll his eyes and walk back toward her. Rubbing a small amount of her cream between her hands, she got to her feet and stepped up to him. She started at the bridge of his nose, pressing slowly as she worked the moisturizer down to his chin, over his cheeks, along his jawline, up across his forehead, and just under his eyes. She found a pattern, one that worked, and her hands glid across his skin tenderly, slowly.

He couldn't help the moan that came out of his mouth, low and throaty, as his eyes fluttered closed. "Liv," he whispered, almost like he was praying.

She smoothed her hands downward, until he was cupping his face, and she whispered, "See what I mean?"

He nodded as he slowly opened his eyes, and once they landed on hers, he moved fast, kissing her. His hands flew to her waist, fingers gripping, knowing she may try to run, and his heart couldn't take it if she succeeded. To his relief, she sank into him, her hands still caressing the sides of his face, her kiss just as deep, just as eager as his, and his name leaving her lips as reverently as hers had left his. He pulled back first, needing to breathe, and pressed his forehead to hers. "You, uh, you were with me on that one, huh?" he asked breathlessly.

She nodded, rubbing her nose against his. "I was with you on the last one, too, I just…" she stopped herself, not wanting to bring Kathy into this, not wanting to let their reality seep into the safe, secure world they'd created for themselves.

"Hey," he said, brushing up against her, begging her to look at him. "You think this is…" he sighed. "It may not be exactly what I had in mind, but we needed time, alone, just to the two of us. Figure this out." He scratched the back of his head and straightened up, kissing her forehead. "The last date I went on, I was eighteen, and it was two for a dollar night at 'Cubs & Subs,' so my skills, here, are pretty fucking outdated."

She laughed, moving away from him. She picked up a book from the side of the vanity, and then plopped herself onto the bed. She laid back, opening to a dogeared page, and read to herself for a minute.

He sighed, yawned, and crawled into the bed from the other side, pulling down the sheets. He scooted closer to her, hoping to get her attention, but then settled for watching her again.

Without lowering the book, she said, "Your last date was a week ago. We went to the diner down the street from the station, it was almost midnight. You spent a lot more than a dollar, and wouldn't take a dime from me. We had a pretty deep conversation, and I swear, you almost kissed me. You, uh, you've got a pretty unique set of skills, and you've perfected certain techniques, so I don't think you have to try as hard as you think you do." She dropped the book to her stomach, turning her head to meet his gaze. "But I get it, I mean, I completely get it…if you'd rather not try at all."

He blinked, his eyebrows rising and the rest of his face frozen.

She licked her lips and sat up a bit. "You're my partner," she said.

"For better or worse," he added, angling himself to match her, countering her doubt. "I think this is on the worse end of things, but here I am, right by your side, protecting you and running with you, and whatever the fuck else we have to face. We face it, together."

"Yeah, but you're my partner," she said again. "I can't do this job without you, and I can't risk…losing you…if we…" she composed herself. This was what she'd been trying to avoid, the blurred lines that had always existed between them fading in the distance, again. "If we start this, El, I can't stop it. I won't, and I don't know what that would mean at work, with your kids, with…us."

He pulled her into his arms, kissed the very top of her head again, and said, "I know all that, and you know damn well I feel the same way. This, you and me, doesn't have an expiration date. And I…" he pushed her away only enough to look into her eyes. "I can't wait to find out how fucking incredible we're gonna be, because…" he grinned smugly, "You know we're gonna be amazing."

She took a breath and exhaled slowly. "But you need to think about…"

"No, Liv, you need to stop thinking about it," he spat, more harshly than he'd meant. "My kids…God, they already think…" he waved a hand and didn't need to finish his sentence. Olivia knew exactly what most of his kids thought about her and their father. "As for work, I'm not quitting, are you?"

Shaking her head, she moved closer to him again.

"And with a track record like we have, with the hell we are being put through right now, do you honestly think Cragen is going to split us up?" he asked, smirking. He moved closer to her, slowly, one hand creeping over her waist. "Baby, he wouldn't dare." He dropped his head lower, into the crook of her neck, and whispered into her ear, "Besides, he made me your husband, Liv. He practically gave us permission." He growled a bit as his lips met her skin, his mouth cupping over her pulse, feeling it beat on his tongue. He moaned, imagining the exact same pulse beating on his tongue, from another part of her body.

"God, Elliot," she moaned, clutching the back of his head, throwing her own back and giving into him.

"The names Greg," he teased, licking a long line from behind her ear to just above her right breast, stopping only because her pajama top was in the way. He looked up at her, and when he saw her eyes darken, he took it as permission. He bent his head again, this time moving her tank to the side, and wrapped his lips around her nipple. He groaned, hearing her soft gasp and light whimper.

Her hands were still at the back of his head, scratching at his scalp, his name falling from her lips like leaves. "Jesus, Elliot," she whispered, her back arching.

He suckled for a moment, pulled back and blew lightly, loving the way she writhed in response. He looked into her almost-black eyes, grinned, and caught the nipple between his teeth. He grazed it lightly, tugged gently, and moaned. His left hand moved from her stomach down to her waist, and he worked it into her cotton drawstring pant. He heard her gasp again, and he chuckled, moving his hand lower. Finally , his fingers grazed her slit, his eyes rolling at how wet she was. "Fuck, baby," he whined, her nipple still in his mouth. He was so close, so perilously close, to bringing his ultimate fantasy to life, two of his fingers slowly pushing into her, when the knock on their door broke more than just the tense silence.

"God, go away," Olivia moaned, frustrated, anxious, and, she hated to admit, relieved.

He let her nipple fall out of her mouth, moved up her body, and his fingers swiped up and down her wet slit again, as he kissed her. "To be continued," he whispered against her lips. He removed his hand, keeping her stare as he slowly sucked each finger.

Olivia pressed her lips together, her body aching as she watched him, and she kissed him again, ignoring the pounding on the door for another moment.

He moved first, getting off of her, and off of the bed, and padding into the next room. He grabbed his gun off of the coffee table, just in case, and without unlatching the door he asked, "Who is it?"

"Open the door, Stabler," the unmistakable voice of Captain Cragen passed through the wood and metal.

Heaving a relieved sigh, Elliot unlocked and opened the door, and let Cragen into the luxurious hotel room. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing," Cragen said, brows angled downward in confusion. "Why?"

"Your last phone call," Olivia said, now wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe. She moved up next to Elliot, something in their tender yet intimate moment, something powerful, made hr desperate to be close to him. "You said you'd only come out here if something happened."

Cragen cleared his throat, trying to ignore how convincing of a couple they seemed, but then again, that's exactly what he wanted. "No, I just, uh, wanted to tell you, in person, that Porter's got a twenty on…your father." He swallowed the urge to say his name, not yet willing or able to give them that. "And your kids are fine, Elliot. I know you're worried about them."

Elliot nodded. "Listen, Cap, not that we don't appreciate a good vacation, but this is…" he looked around the room and shook his head. "This is as far from a safe house as you can get, and we can't afford…"

"The department is paying for it," Cragen said, cutting him off. "I gotta get back to the city, but I had to see…make sure you were…" he cleared his throat again. He was worried about them. He looked at Olivia. "Can you give us a second, Olivia?"

Frowning, but nodding, Olivia backed up and headed into the small kitchenette to pour herself a much needed drink.

Elliot looked at Cragen. "You know I hate leaving her out of things," he said. "This had better be important."

"It is," Cragen said. "Kathy knows you're undercover, but she doesn't know why. She signed off on an expedited divorce, but she won't…she postponed all custody hearings until this is over. She doesn't want to win by default, I just need you to know…I don't know how long this is going to take." He ran a hand down his face. "I asked her if…uh, if this lasts more than a day or two, if I could bring the kids to see you. So I will."

"Thanks," Elliot said, tears suddenly springing to his eyes, "Thank you." He sniffled. "But why couldn't you have said that in front of…"

"That wasn't…" Cragen exhaled. "There's something else I need to tell you, that she can't know just yet, but it isn't the right time for it. Keep your phone on. I'll call you later." He nodded, waved at Olivia over his shoulder, and left them alone in the hotel room.

As he walked down the hall, a slow and easy smile crept across his face, and the realization that his plan might just be working sunk in. He checked his watch and cursed under his breath. He didn't have much time to get back to Manhattan, to make absolutely certain that Elliot and Olivia didn't find out why they were really undercover. If they knew, all hell would break loose, and Cragen wasn't ready to go down. Not without a fight. Not at all.

 **A/N: …O..O O..o o..o**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** **"A surfeit of information often hides an untruth," he said, with annoying clarity." ― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"Uh, yes, ma'am," Elliot said, the phone held as close to his ear as possible. He was pacing back and forth in their hotel room's parlor, biting the thumb nail of his left hand. "Right, right. Absolutely. No, that…I understand that. My job…uh, well, it doesn't get in the way of the important things, I've never missed a football or soccer game, I've never skipped a parent-teacher conference, unless you count the once…well, twice my partner and I…oh, uh, Olivia, yes. Benson."

Olivia was trying not to listen, sitting on the couch reading, but her ears and her head perked up at the mention of her name. She watched him move, back and forth, wearing a pattern into the carpet. She had never seen him look as nervous as this, and it very nearly scared her.

"Yes, ma'am, that's right," he said, again, a new nail on a new finger now lodged between his teeth. Suddenly he froze, stiffened, stood almost at attention. His hand fell from his mouth. "Really? I mean, really, really? Oh, thank you, Your Honor!" He gave a slight victorious fist pump, maki8ng a face, and his eyes rolled heavenward and his shoulders finally relaxed. "You have no idea how much that…yes, I will. Thank you." He hung up, dropping the phone into its cradle on the coffee table, and did what he'd really needed to do since his phone rang. He fell into the couch, dropped his head into his hands, and cried.

"What happened?" Olivia asked, tossing her book aside and looping an arm around him.

Shaking his head, he buried his face in the bend of her neck, and sobbed lightly, laughing at the same time. "That was the judge…the one handling all this shit with Kathy." He lifted his head and sniffled. "Whenever we get out of this mess, when we…when we go home…" he smiled and looked upward again, saying a silent prayer of thanks. "The kids…are coming with me."

Olivia smiled brightly at him. "Really?" she asked, wide-eyed. "Oh, El, that's fantastic…"

He had cut her off, a good, hard kiss stopping her words. He cupped her face, pushing against her so her body fell back, into the couch. He moved one hand lower, down the side of her body, easing her gently until her head dropped to the arm of the sofa. He toyed with the drawstrings of her pants, still kissing her, whispering, "I know what you did," against her lips.

She mumbled something back to him, but he had deepened the kiss, pressed into her a bit more, making her words unintelligible. Her hands moved, then, around his neck, down his back, she chuckled against his lips when she heard him yelp in surprise, feeling him bucking into her as she grabbed his perfect ass.

"Playing with fire," he spoke, moving his lips away from hers to assault her neck with lavish attention.

She moaned, gripping him tighter, arching upward. "Am I?" she asked teasingly.

He bit her neck hard in response, and when her reaction was a loud, "Oh, God, Elliot," he took it as a sign. He nipped, bit, and sucked his way across her collar bone, to the other side of her neck, his hands trying to fight against their trembling to work into her pants.

Her moans of pleasure became moans of protest, and she pushed him back slightly. "Whoa, cowboy," she chuckled. "What has gotten into you?"

He narrowed his eyes, confused. "I don't think it's what's gotten into me," he said, and then he smirked. "It's what's about to get into you." He wagged his brows at her, but when she didn't resume kissing him, he sobered. "What's wrong?"

She sighed, biting her lip. "You don't have to…I don't want you to think you owe me anything," she said, pushing him away so she could sit up. "I did what I did because I…" she looked at him. "Because you know how I feel about you. It didn't take much. A phone call or two, a few little white lies," she shrugged. "You don't have to…"

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" he asked, hurt. He looked away from her, getting off the couch, and one hand flew to his mouth, rubbing hard, as the other rested on his hip. "Fuck, Liv, I'm not! I would never…" he turned sharply. "You think this is happening too fast, too fucking fast to be real? To mean anything? That it?"

She ran her hands through her hair, exhaling, but saying nothing.

"Or do you think that I'm so fucking eager to hop into bed with you because I'm not home fucking Kathy?" his voice cracked, proving he was just as upset and scared as he was angry. "Even if we were home, Liv, I wouldn't be fucking her, because I'm fucking in love with you! You think I would use you like that?"

"No, that…" she spoke, pointing at him, shaking her head and giving him a flat smile. "That I know you'd never do." She lowered her hand and her eyes. "I know…I can feel how much you…mean this." She held back tears and blinked quickly as she tried to look at him again. "I'm terrified," she admitted in a whisper. She felt herself paling. She had never let him see this side of her. Even during her mother's funeral, when he tried to be there to comfort her, in any and every possible way, she hid the more vulnerable emotions. She had snuck out of bed and into the bathroom to cry. Cry for her mother, cry over the fact that she'd fallen hopelessly in love with a married man, and let him hold her all night, wearing his best suit, because she was too proud to admit she didn't want to be alone, and because he wouldn't let her be alone anyway.

"It's never meant this much," she confessed. She gave one, single, hard, scoffing laugh. "My relationships…they've always been guys I kept at arm's length, kept from getting too close, so when they left…because of my job, because of my past, because of…me…it wouldn't completely destroy me. With you…you're all I've got, and losing you would…" she shook her head, refusing to say it out loud.

He moved toward her, seeing how distant her gaze had become, and he lifted her chin with three fingers. "Oh, honey," he laughed softly, looking down at her. "I'm petrified, too," he told her. "For the same reasons." He knelt down before her, moving his other hand to her face and holding it his hands. He bent his head and nuzzled her nose. "But I'm more afraid of giving up, now, of spending one more fucking day without you…the way I want you…the way I need you. I spent four years falling more in love with you than I thought was possible, and the closer we got, the more I fell, and I can't…" he stopped, he sighed. "My divorce has nothing to with you, Liv. I didn't leave Kathy just because I…"

"I know," she said softly, her eyes closing as she rested her forehead against his. "I already told you…I don't want to lose you, and I know…I suck at this. I'm gonna fuck up, and you're gonna realize how much better you could do, how much more is out there, and when you do…I'll completely break, because you are the only person…the only person in the world who has enough of me to break my heart."

He kissed her. A soft and gentle kiss, so tender. "Nothing you could ever do would make me run from this, or turn away from you. I'm not gonna break your heart, because that would kill me. Okay? That's never gonna happen," he promised her, kissing her softly again. "Trust me."

"You're the only person I trust," she said to him. "That's why…that's why I can't…"

"Liv," he interrupted, "Look at me." He waited until her eyes were set on his. "You know I could say the same exact thing to you, don't you? You've got…everything I have, everything I am, more than I have ever given anyone. Do you know, Olivia Benson, the power you have over me? How completely devoted to you I am, and have been, for years? Anything you want or need, anything you ask of me…even…even things that you don't have to ask…" he tried so hard to explain, but there were some things, he realized, that couldn't be said. He got to his feet, his barely healed ankle cracking as he moved, and he pulled her up with him, his hands still around his face. "I made this promise to you, four years ago, when you walked into that squadroom and sat behind that desk, I will never be the reason you hurt, I will never be the cause of your pain, and I will love, honor, protect, and defend you with everything I have, until the day I…"

It was her turn to silence him. She kissed him, and her body seemed to pick up on signals her brain didn't mean to send. She moved with him, toward the bedroom, but before they could kiss their way to the bed the room's phone rang.

He rolled his eyes and laughed at the absurdity of the situation. He pulled her toward him again, kissing her in spite of the ringing phone, hoping whoever it was would hang up.

The backs of her knees hit the mattress and she fell backward, flattening onto it, taking him with her. They laughed as they kissed, and there was no urgency, just slow, easy kisses and her fingertips running along his arms. In this kiss, they said everything for which they couldn't find the words.

Elliot took the chance, holding his breath, as he moved one hand down to the waistband of her pants. He pulled back from her, looking for any sign of hesitation or doubt, and when he saw nothing but love staring back at him, he slowly shoved the pants over her hips. He followed his hands with his mouth, kissing each bit of newly exposed skin, chuckling to himself when it became clear she wasn't wearing anything under the sweats.

He kept his mouth occupied, kissing and biting the skin of her inner thigh, as she bent her legs and let him tug the pants completely off of her. He gently pressed her legs back down as his eyes moved up to look at her again. Once their gazes locked, he moved, slowly, his mouth hovering over her bare, smooth, center. He eyed her, seeing the anticipation in her eyes, and he smirked as he bent his head.

He let his tongue swipe up her slit once, loving the way she bucked up and gasped. This was never something he had a great desire to do, not until Olivia, and he realized with just one taste of her, that he had found a new addiction. He rested one hand on her stomach, feeling it clench and roll, as he got to work, slowly licking upward, over and over.

Her hands wound themselves in his short hair, her nails scratched at his scalp, and she moaned his name and a few unladylike words. "Jesus, fuck, Elliot," she seethed, her eyes shut tight, just before her jaw dropped open.

He let his tongue move a little faster, deeper, swirling in intricate patterns, and when she began to thrust in a rhythmic motion, he caught her swelling clit between his lips. He sucked, slowly inching the fingers of his other hand to meet his mouth. He was amazed at the noises she was making for him, sounds he'd never coaxed from his ex-wife, and it made him eager to earn more from her, make her give him everything, as he'd promised to give her. One of his thick fingers slowly pushed into her.

"Oh, my God," she cried, twisting his hair with one hand and scratching up his scalp with the other. "Elliot, holy shit," she moaned, as she felt him pushing in one more finger.

He nipped her clit lightly with his teeth, and then flicked at it quickly with his tongue, simultaneously twisting and thrusting his two fingers, feeling her grow wetter with every move. He couldn't stop watching her eyes, her face at it contorted in pleasure and bliss, for him, because of him. He wrapped his lips around her clit again, holding it gingerly between his teeth as he kept sucking. "Come on, baby," he mumbled to her. Letting it go for a moment, he said, "Cum for me."

Her eyes rolled back hard at his words, her hands held his head down to her as her hips thrust into him. His voice alone turned her on, on a regular basis, but hearing him call her "baby" and begging her to cum, made her head spin and her entire body ache. "Elliot, God," she whimpered, feeling a burn begin to build. "Please," she whispered, her head dropping backward, "Please don't stop."

He smirked as he licked around his working his fingers, loving that he'd reduced her to such a wonton puddle of putty in his hands. He felt her pulsing around his fingers, and his heart stopped. Something he'd dreamt about, fantasized about, begged God to give him, was finally coming to life and he didn't want to miss it. He moved fast, keeping his fingers rolling and twisting and thrusting as he kissed his way up her body. He nipped at her chest through her top, and when he reached her face to face, he smiled at her. "I have been waiting…so long…to watch this," he panted. "Look at me," he said, demanding.

She rolled her head toward him, forcing herself to open her eyes. One hand was twisting the sheets beneath her like a machine, the other reaching for his face. She kept her eyes trained on him, wide open, as she felt his thumb begin to firmly press and circle her clit, and she exploded for him. "Oh, God, Elliot, yes," she spat out, rapid and breathless, her body jerking and bucking, but her eyes glued to his.

"Holy fucking shit," he said, still moving his fingers, not wanting this to end. He had never seen anything more gloriously beautiful, more incredibly sexy, or more intensely emotional as her, coming undone for him. He kissed her fast, hard, frantically, as his hand worked overtime in a desperate attempt to make her cum again. "Come on, baby," he breathed into her ear hotly. "One more for me, fuck, please," he whimpered, dropping his head to her neck. He kissed and bit and sucked. He moved fast, catching her earlobe in his mouth, sucking on it momentarily before licking the spot right behind her ear. He felt her clenching again, his heart was ready to burst as he watched her body arch again, and he covered her mouth with his just in time to catch a scream that would have surely disturbed the people in the next room.

Still kissing her, he slowed his fingers, gradually bringing her down. Pulling them away from her was almost painful, his wrist was aching, but his fingers itched to touch her again. He stopped kissing her, only long enough to suck each of his two fingers, keeping his eyes locked on hers as he did. Without words, he moved in again, kissing her with as much tenderness as he could, hoping she could feel it.

She moaned into his kiss, her right knee pressed between his legs, feeling his hardness twitch and pulse. She moved one hand down his back, over his hip, inching closer and closer to him, and just before she cupped him, just before she felt him at full attention for the first time, the phone rang again. "No," she complained, shaking her head as he rested his own against it, making their noses brush together.

He sighed, dejected, and kissed her forehead twice as he reached over to the end table to answer it. "Hello?" he questioned, knowing he couldn't answer it the way he usually would, since at this moment, no one was even supposed to know him as "Stabler."

As he listened to the person speak, he sat up, his eyes widened. "What? Are you sure?" he asked, his voice now laced with panic and fury. "Don't fucking mistake…are you absolutely…shit," he spat. He exhaled harshly and looked at Olivia. "No, she's…she's absolutely…perfect," he told the caller, unable to keep from smiling. He ran the pad of his thumb under her right eye and blew her a kiss.

She smiled back at him, moving closer to him. When he kissed her forehead again, she closed her eyes. He had hit spots inside of her, emotionally as well as physically, that no one ever had, that she didn't know existed, and she promised herself that she wouldn't screw it up this time. He was it for her, as long as he wanted her. "Yeah," she heard Elliot say, and her head popped back up.

"Okay, uh, no, we'll find a place…you can do that? Perfect." He took a moment. "Thanks." He hung up and got out of the bed, picking up any clothes, shoes, and books around the room. "Uh, we, uh, we gotta go," he said, pulling a black bag out from under the bed.

"What? Where? Why?" she asked, furrowing her brow as she caught the pants he threw at her. "I can't move my legs, right now," she said, rolling her eyes.

He laughed, leaning over the bed and kissing her slowly. "I will carry you, if I have to, but we need to get out of here." He started to empty the drawers as he spoke. "Cragen…wasn't a hundred percent honest with us."

She finally got out of the bed, on shaking legs, and moved to help him "My father isn't…"

"Oh, he is," Elliot said, nodding. "But the first time…that cop really was aiming for Cragen." He looked at Olivia with fear and pain in his eyes, the betrayal of someone close to him sinking in, the lines between friend and enemy no longer clear, the lines between friend and captain no longer mattering. "Honey, Cragen set us up." He kissed the end of her nose and looked into her eyes. "We're bait."

 **A/N: …O..O O..o o..o**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** **"the best lies to tell are the ones people want to believe" ― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"Bait?" she asked, having found her voice after excruciating silence. Instinctively, she helped him pack. "Bait for what? Who?"

"He didn't tell me," Elliot said, shoving as much as he could into the one bag they had. "He just said that if we needed to get out, if we needed someplace to go…there's a safehouse not too far from here."

Olivia scoffed. "Yeah, let's just make it easier for…"

"An FBI house, Liv," he corrected, stopping her words. He zipped up the bag and grabbed the smaller one that held their IDs, both real and fake, guns, badges, and money. "This," he said, holding up the credit card Cragen had given them and tossing it onto the mattress, "Is staying here. So's this," he added, dropping the burner cell on the bed beside it.

Olivia paled. "What…what could he possibly have had to do…" she shook her head. "All he had to do was ask."

Elliot shook his head as he took her hand. "I don't think that he was trying to stop something from happening," he said. He turned to her, his free hand moving to cup her chin, and he kissed her softly. "I think he wanted to make it happen. To us."

Olivia shuddered, pulling her hand out of his to get their coats out of the closet. "Here," she said, helping to wrap him up in his jacket. She tugged on her own and said, "How do we know Porter isn't lying to us?"

"We don't," he said, taking her hand again. He led her out of the hotel room and toward the side staircase. "But it's not a chance I'm willing to take." As they ran down the steps, he spoke fast. "Think about it, someone wants Cragen dead, there's gotta be a reason, so he makes up some bullshit excuse about your dad being after you…when he was probably the one…"

"After Cragen," she finished. "You think my father, psycho rapist though he is, is trying to…"

"Protect you," he said, nodding. "Maybe he and Cragen were in it together, or maybe Porter's full of shit, or maybe I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and this is all going to be one fucking horrible…" he paused to look at her and one eyebrow quirked, and he smirked as he continued. "A horrible but fucking erotic dream."

She chuckled in spite of the situation, still holding his hand, and he pulled her through the last landing's door, which led to the alley behind the hotel. "El, the Jeep is…"

"Probably LOJAC'd," he interrupted, pulling her with him. "I left the card, but I took the cash. We'll take a cab to…"

"El, wait, do you really think Cragen is capable of…"

"I don't know what the hell to think," he said, cutting her off again, turning to her fast. "All I know is, no matter who I listen to, someone wants to hurt us. Hurt you! I already promised you, I am never letting anyone hurt you. If Porter's right, or not, we'll find out eventually, but I want to get to a safe place, call my kids, and figure out…what…what this means." He held up their tangled hands. "And how much it's gonna scare you, how mush begging and pleading I'm gonna need to do before you…"

His words were stopped by her lips, her tongue swiped along the seam of his mouth, and when he gasped, she worked her way in, deep. Both of her hands, including the one clutching his, shot to his face, her body pressed into his, and she moaned softly just before she pulled away from him, needing to breathe. "I'm not scared. Not of this, not…not anymore."

He smiled, nodding as he held her against him, their foreheads rubbing together. "Come on, I want us as far away from this place as possible in case…"

"Olivia," a cold, low voice, from the shadows of the alley, called out.

They stiffened as Elliot moved in front of her, cursing the fact that his gun was nestled inside the duffle bag. "Who the fuck are you?" he barked, trying to feel Olivia's hips, hoping she had her off-duty piece somewhere, anywhere.

Stepping out into the streetlamp lit road, he said, "Relax, look. I'm not armed, I'm not even…I'm not here to hurt you." He had his hands in the pockets of what looked like a very expensive suit. "Agent Charles Hollister."

"Hollister?" Olivia repeated, her head spinning. "So you're…"

"I know what crock of shit story Don Cragen told you," the man interrupted. "My fingerprints, yes, but…my brother's DNA. Funny thing about twins," he shrugged. "Look, you're in trouble…"

"Stay right, the fuck, there," Elliot shouted, backing himself up, still keeping Olivia behind him. "You're close enough." He felt Olivia grip his arms tighter, and he looked over his shoulder and whispered, "It's gonna be okay. I got you."

The man stopped moving and held up both hands. "I just spent the last twenty minutes on the phone with a friend of yours. Agent Porter?"

"Wouldn't call him a friend," Elliot scoffed.

Hollister chuckled at that. "Not many people would. He was pushing too hard to find a warm body, someone to blame, to give you the closure you never got because my brother…" he cleared his throat. "I gave him everything he needed, and a sworn and verified statement. Those rapes…it was all him, and I was…"

"Following him," Olivia gathered. "Trying to stop him."

Charles nodded. "I wouldn't hurt anyone, not unless they deserved it, not unless…it was my job," he told her, and there was a shocking sincerity in his voice. "He told me he was going to call you, and…"

"Burner phone," Elliot whispered to Olivia. "On the bed. Maybe he did call." He tried to comfort her, hoping he was doing it.

"The thing you need to understand…being a federal agent, there's a lot of things we can, and often do, get away with," Charles said.

"Oh, I know," Olivia said, thinking of the number of crimes she could convict Porter of without breaking a sweat. "Trust me."

"But I swear, I would never take advantage of that," Charles said. "Not until I found out…just how much trouble you were in." He took two steps forward, but stopped, seeing that Elliot had managed to get his gun out of the bag and was now aiming it, at him."

"Explain," Elliot yelled, "From there."

Charles sighed. "Okay, okay, just…drop the gun."

"No fucking way," Elliot cursed.

With another sigh, Charles spoke. "I got tipped off by an informant that there were two corrupt cops at the sixteenth precinct in Manhattan, and what they had their hands in…it was my job to bring them down. Initial reports…well, I thought…Elliot, I thought you were one of them, but then I got my hands on Olivia's file…she had the same black marks." He shrugged. "But I knew it wasn't her, it would never be her."

"Is that how you found out she was your niece?" Elliot asked. "You saw your brother's name in her file?"

"I put two and two together when Porter interrogated me, let it slip I had…or he thought that I had a kid who was cop, said her name, listed all of her accolades and mentioned her closure rate, and her partner…and then it hit me." Hollister shoved his hands in his pockets again. "You would be able to help me find your rats."

"But Porter thought you were coming after her…to kill her," Elliot surmised. He watched Charles nod. "So, what, you thought you'd just blow her up instead?"

Hollister got defensive, then. "That bomb wasn't meant for her! Or you! My guys put it under the wrong car, and I thank God that you weren't in it." He blinked once. "On my way into the city, my informant called me again, told me he had overheard one of these crooked cops making a deal, a transaction." He held out a hand. "You two, in exchange for a bigger piece of whatever profits were accrued from the drugs and the gambling."

"Us?" Olivia gasped. "Who the hell…"

Hollister didn't let her finish asking. "So I called a friend, someone I knew who worked in the same unit as this guy, asked him to stop him."

"Fredrick," Elliot said, understanding now. "He really was aiming for Cragen."

"Yeah, but I underestimated the lengths your unit would go to, to save each other," Hollister said, scratching his chin. "I finally got down to the station, you weren't there, neither was Cragen, I panicked. I called Porter, explained…everything, and I…"

"Traced the call," Olivia finished.

"You two are good," Hollister laughed. "I'm here, because someone is coming, and they're expecting to find you two in a rather compromising position, in the honeymoon suite of this hotel." He coughed once, nervous. "Cragen gave the two of you up to a man named Ron Aldacott."

Olivia looked at Elliot. "Name sounds familiar," she said, "Why?"

Elliot thought, hard, but turned to her and shrugged. "No clue."

"Olivia reads the interoffice memos," Hollister laughs. "I guess you don't. Aldaott was brought in a year ago, a suspect in a series of home invasions and kidnappings, but he is…very wealthy, and there wasn't anything more than circumstantial evidence, so they let him go. He put feelers out for new…suppliers, so to speak. People who would deliver the couples to him, so he couldn't be tied to anything, but keep his little operation going."

Elliot was growing more furious by the second, he could feel his skin heat up and redden. "You're telling me, our captain was going to hand deliver us to a guy who…what, has a thing for threesomes?"

"No," Hollister sighed. "I'm telling you that Cragen was selling you to a man who would force you to…hurt each other. In ways that I'm not comfortable explaining. A man who would torture you if you didn't do as he wanted, would force you to do it all anyway, and would kill her, make you watch, and then…"

"Okay," Olivia said, needing to stop him before she let herself realize what it all meant. "So, what, you want us to go with you, now?"

"No," he said, slowly easing forward, and when Elliot didn't pull the trigger, he took another step, and then another, until he was close enough to see the features of their faces, and the fear in their eyes. "I want you to go back into the room, play the part, and nail the bastard." He looked at Elliot apologetically. "I know it's a lot to ask, but now that you know what's coming, I have everything you'll need, and Porter and I will be in the bedroom, waiting, you won't be up there alone."

Elliot lowered his gun. "What about Cragen?"

Hollister looked into Elliot's worried eyes. "Porter hasn't told him anything. He thinks it's all going down as planned, and he's waiting for Aldacott's call. We nab him, we tell him to make the call, set up the drop, and when Cragen shows up to collect his fee…"

"Yeah," Elliot said, dropping his head into the bend of his elbow. He wiped his eyes, and then his brow, and he shook with bitter laughter as he said, "I knew…when he offered to bring the kids." He looked at Olivia. "He would never put them in danger. He knew I wouldn't be alive long enough to ask him to…"

"El, don't," Olivia said, lifting her hands to his face. She swiped under his eyes with her thumbs, brushing away the terrified tears that had fallen.

Hollister's heart cracked at the sight before him, and he had to swallow his own emotions. "If you don't want to do this, I understand. You've been through enough. I will take you back to the head…"

"Come on," Elliot said, not letting Hollister say anything else, and he pulled Olivia back toward the stairwell door.

Hollister waved a hand over his head, looking toward a black car on the side of the road, and watched with a grin as Porter got out of it. The two agents followed Olivia and Elliot's path, up the stairs, and when they got to their room, Hollister pulled Elliot aside as Porter talked to Olivia. "We will be right in the next room. Nothing is going to happen to either of you." He took a small pin out of his pocket and clipped it to the collar of Elliot's tee shirt. "We'll be able to hear everything, so once you have him where we want him, we'll come through and take him down. Thank you for…"

"I'm not doing this for you," Elliot spat. "For the last three years, she thought of Cragen as a father. For so fucking long, she didn't have one, she just had this monster in her past, so for her to give that honor to someone who would turn around and betray her like this…"

"You love her," Hollister interrupted, "Don't you?"

Elliot nodded firmly, once, no trace of a smile on his face. "With everything I have. And no one…hurts her like this…and lives." He paused. "So these weapons you said you were giving us?"

Hollister looked down, pulling one gun out of the holster at his back. "This…fires fast. If you need to shoot, you'll have him down before he can draw." He checked it before handing it over to Elliot. "She loves you, too, you know. There's a statement in her jacket…you should, um, read if you…"

"If it's something she wants to tell me, she'll tell me," Elliot said, stopping him. "And I know she does. We, uh, we're together."

Hollister smiled. "So your aliases, Mister and Missus Greg Martin, that was…"

"Cragen's idea," Elliot told him. "But we aren't complaining." He watched as Hollister moved into the bedroom, followed by Porter, and he ran over to Olivia. "Are you…"

"I'm fine," she said suddenly. "I'm just…trying not to think about it, because if I think about it, I'm going to feel…everything." She looked at him. "We have a job to do, and I will wait until it's done before I let myself have the nervous breakdown I know I'm gonna have."

He laughed, but he pulled her into his arms. "I'm not letting you do that." He kissed her forehead, and then her nose, and then her lips. He repeated her earlier actions, enticing her lips open, deepening the kiss. He knew they had to be ready for Aldacott, but he was going to make sure they enjoyed the wait.

He lost himself in their kiss, running his hands over her body as he moaned into her mouth, forgetting momentarily that their world, yet again, had turned on its ear. He then realized something, and he chuckled.

Dean Porter was in the other room, listening, and it was icing on the cake. Tables turned, and he wasn't one bit sorry about it.

 **A/N: A takedown and a confrontation, but with whom? Next? Yes? No?**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** **"Love isn't sensible, Red. I think that's the point." ― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

Elliot had pressed on, letting himself get rather lost in Olivia. All thoughts of someone coming after them disappeared, his hands flitted up her shirt, grabbing and teasing the bare flesh beneath them. Their moans grew a bit louder, their hearts thumped a bit faster, and he wondered, briefly, just how compromising a position they should be in when they got caught.

A light scratching at the door broke them apart, their rapid pulses now frozen, paused. "Don't move," he whispered to her, keeping his muscular frame over her body. One hand slid out from under her shirt and moved to his back pocket, taking hold of the gun Hollister had given him, and he isolated every muscle, moving so slowly, as he shifted his weight, readying it at his side, just in case Porter and Hollister hesitated.

The door creaked open, but Olivia stared up, at Elliot, knowing she had to, and finding comfort in his eyes. She whispered, "I love you," hoping it wouldn't be the last time she told him, but needing it be the last thing he heard, in case this went badly.

They heard the click, the door locking, and that's when they moved, turning their heads, dropping their jaws. The man was tall, but lanky. He wore a wicked grin that made his greased back hair somehow look more evil. "Good evening," he said, his arms at his sides.

"Who the hell are you?" Elliot asked, still draped protectively over Olivia, moving his gun slightly, turning his wrist.

The man chuckled, moving forward two steps. "Call me Ron," he said. Like lightning, then, he flipped open a switchblade knife and pressed it against Elliot's neck as he reached out, reached down, and brushed the back of his other gritty hand against Olivia's cheek. "I'm the man that's going to change your life," he said, and he looked down at her. "You're different," he said, almost reverently. "Something…about you…" and as he moved, again, to touch her, he dropped his guard, dropping his knife away from Elliot.

That's when Elliot made his move, elbowing the man in the jaw and raising his gun, aiming. "NYPD," he said, almost growling, standing now. He moved in front of Olivia, readying his trigger finger. "Freeze."

"Oh, no, I don't think so," the man laughed, lunging toward Elliot with the sharp blade.

Elliot pulled the trigger, gasping at how fast it fired, how accurately it had aimed, and how little kickback it gave. "Shit," he spat, righting himself and aiming again.

"What the fuck?" Aldacott mumbled, shaking his head. He looked at his arm, seeing the blood soak into his suit jacket's sleeve. "Oh, hell, no," he growled, turning fast. He froze, though, as he came face to face with Dean Porter and Charles Hollister.

Guns aimed, snarling at him, each one identified himself as an FBI agent, and knowing he was trapped, he raised his hands and slowly knelt to the floor, dropping his knife onto the floor. "How the hell did you…" and then he turned. He glared angrily at Elliot. "Who tipped you off? That bastard, Cragen?"

"No," Elliot huffed, his gun still up. "How much were you paying him? Huh?" He lunged forward, grabbing Aldacott by the collar and twisting hard. He didn't know where the anger bubbled from, but he had no intention of capping it. "What are we worth?"

"Elliot?" Olivia was on her feet now, moving behind him, her hands grabbing at his arms. "Stop!"

"No, Liv!" Elliot yelled. "We have a right to know what kinda price the man you thought of as a fucking father put on your head!" He looked at Aldacott, his eyes narrowing. "And why you came, in person, alone."

Aldacott sneered at him, trying to wriggle free. He was flanked on either side by FBI agents, so he sighed as he settled and stilled. "He told me you two were eager to please, and that you'd do anything for each other, that you could never hurt each other. He didn't tell me you were cops, and he certainly didn't tell me you…" he paused, and his face reddened. "He set me up?"

"No," Porter said to him, pulling on his freshly cuffed wrists. "No, we just got ya, because you trusted the wrong people to keep your secrets."

Hollister tilted his head. "He's right," he said, nodding at Elliot. "Why did you come by yourself, instead of sending your fishermen into this?"

Aldacott eyed Olivia. "When he told me they'd do anything…" he groaned, his eyes rolled back, and he lost stability for a moment, "I didn't want to waste any time. I was gonna start breaking them, here, now, and see how far they'd go. I guess my, uh, impatience was my Hamartia."

Elliot shook his head and let his eyes drift heavenward, as he tried to wrap his head around what had happened, and why. He pulled Olivia into his arms, kissed her forehead, and said, "What's really fucked up about this is that I would have done…anything he asked. Anything. To keep you safe."

Olivia nodded, dropping her head against his chest, letting him know she would have complied, too. "How much?" she asked, shooting the question again, at Aldacott, as Porter and Hollister carried him toward the door.

"Twenty percent of my last take," Aldacott said, and then he laughed. "God, seventy-five thousand dollars." He caught Elliot's resentful eyes. "Each." He grimaced when Porter tugged on his cuffs, and dragged his feet as he was ushered out of the room.

Hollister sighed, holstering his gun, and he looked at Elliot and Olivia with sorrow-filled eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, "For all of this. The confusion, the wild goose chase, and I'm sorry for giving you, Olivia, false hope that your father was still out there, for making you question everything you had finally put behind you." He held out a hand. "The agency will, uh, thank you for this. Monetarily and otherwise."

Elliot shook his hand firmly. "Thank you for, uh, warning us. And for telling us the truth, even though it…really fucking sucks."

Hollister moved his hand toward Olivia. "If you ever need to know anything, at all, about your father, or even if you just want to meet the rest of the family you never knew you had, please, call me."

She swallowed down the urge to cry, nodding at him as she shook his hand. "Maybe, uh, thank you."

Hollister nodded, and then raised an eyebrow at the gun still in Elliot's hand. "Clean it," he said. "And keep it." He gave them each another long, wistful glance, and then licked his lips as he walked out of the hotel room.

"Wait!" Elliot yelled. He ran after him, pulling Olivia along. "Wait, uh, Agent Hollister?"

Charles turned, raising both eyebrows.

Elliot took a breath and looked at Olivia. His Liv. The woman he swore to protect, defend, love, honor and obey, till death. It may not have been a wedding, but being her partner held just as much promise, and the vows meant more to him because of her. He looked back at Hollister. "Not that I war to do this, but, we both need to see this through. We...we should be there when he makes the call. When Cragen shows up to…"

"You really want to watch him betray us? You honestly want to be there to watch it happen?" Olivia asked, her voice breaking and tears she'd been trying to keep at bay finally fell.

He wiped her eyes with curled knuckles, and so softly, he said to her, "It already happened." He kissed away one tear that had fallen just over her lips. "I want to be there…to see his face, baby, when he realizes it didn't work, and we're still alive and kicking, and still together."

She sniffled, wrapped herself around him tighter, and looked at Hollister. "Can you give us a few minutes to grab our stuff?"

Hollister nodded. He waited in the hallway for them, and when they returned, they had their two bags, and a few of the hotel's robes and towels in their arms. He raised a brow and smirked. "Really?"

"Hey, flash the badge, they won't argue," Elliot said, and he laughed as he grabbed Olivia's hand and tugged her closer. He looped an arm around her when she got close enough, and he whispered something in her ear that made her blush.

"Do I wanna know?" Hollister said, grinning.

"Not even a little bit," Elliot said, following the agent down the stairs and out to the side of the hotel. "We should leave the Jeep here. If he tracks it, he should probably think…"

"Yeah," Hollister said, nodding. "Good idea." He led them toward the silver car Porter had been driving, getting behind the wheel. "You can, uh, both get in the back."

Olivia stifled a yawn. "That's the plan." She opened the door and slid in, shoving her bag down onto the floor. Elliot's dropped on top of hers, before he plopped down beside her. She got close to him, as close as she could, and she curled into him. Her head lolled into the crook of his neck, her hands twisted the fabric of his shirt, and she let out a hard, heavy sigh.

"We'll get through this," he whispered to her, kissing her forehead. "I promise you, we will." He held her against him as Hollister started the car, and he pressed his lips to hers as they pulled away from the curb and headed off to change their lives, one more time. "You believe me, right?" he asked, kissing her again.

She nodded, breathing him in, and she moaned at his scent. Something about the way he smelled always got to her. In the mornings, when he reeked of bad coffee and expensive cologne, she fantasized about waking up in his arms. After hard workouts, rough cases, long days in the New York City heat, when he smelled like grime and musk and just a hint of arousal, she was lost to mental images of him working up a sweat with her, in bed, or up against walls, taking her for all she had. The nights they spent together in the cribs, or during cases that took up a few days, when he smelled like fresh mint and Ivory soap, thoughts of him showering washed over her, and she wondered if he was the kind of man who bothered wrapping himself up a towel or if he just shook off and drip-dried.

She moaned, chiding herself for harboring these fantasies for years, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at him, realizing they weren't just fantasies anymore. The past few days had answered all of her questions: he buys the expensive cologne because she loves the way it smells; he glistens and shimmers as he works his body into hers, and the bed and wall are equally consuming; he has no shame, and has every reason to be proud of his body. He would be absolutely comfortable running around naked all day, if it was legal. She wouldn't mind at all.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, seeing the look in her eyes, watching her lips curl into a smirk.

"You," she answered, honestly. She let herself relax into him. "I really do love you."

He smiled. "Thank God you do," he said. "I would be miserable if you didn't." He lowered his voice and said, "That's my miracle."

She kissed him softly, letting her right hand move to his face, her thumb resting under his chin.

Hollister smiled as he caught a glimpse of them in the rear view mirror, in awe of how in love they really were, in spite of the odds and circumstances fighting against them, in spite of the hell they were about to face bringing a relationship like theirs into light, into work, into their reality. He hated that he was a part of ripping them away from the solitude and freedom they'd found in the safe house, but he would never apologize for bringing them out of it alive, unharmed, giving them the chance to fight those odds.

He stopped at a red light, seeing the reflection of the couple, still kissing, in the mirror. His phone lit up on the seat next to him, and he looked down at it, all mirth fading as he read the words on his screen.

In black letters, against a yellowish background, Porter had texted: He talked. He made the call.

Sighing, he stepped on the gas, picked up the phone, and asked Porter where and when the drop was set. He threw the phone back onto the passenger seat and gritted his teeth. This had been way too easy, but taking Olivia and Elliot into the storm with him was the hardest thing he would ever have to do.

 **A/N: Cragen…explains. Is he really betraying his children, or has the line between good and evil been blurred, into a puddle of grey?**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** **"I didn't set out to discover a truth…But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind." ― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"No," Tucker said, simply and calmly. "No," he repeated, only turning slightly over his shoulder. He raised one finger, and as soon as he saw Elliot open his mouth to speak, he said, one more time, "No."

Rolling his eyes, Elliot scoffed. "This isn't fair!"

"You sound like a five-year-old," Tucker spat.

Olivia chuckled. "No, none of his kids ever threw fits like that." She sighed. "It isn't fair, though. He's right."

Tucker turned sharply and narrowed his eyes at her. "What's not fair is that two detectives, who were supposed to be in protective custody, let themselves get roped into an FBI operation without going through the necessary channels! Do you know how much paperwork I have to do, now?" he yelled. "And let's not even start in on how I have two cops, one of which is the captain of this fucking sinking ship, behind that glass, that are dirtier than shit, and I didn't notice because I was too fucking worried about you!"

Olivia, her eyes wide and her face frozen in blank shock, blinked stupidly at him. "Worried," she said. "About me?"

Tucker nodded. "You," he confirmed. He waved a hand at the pair. "Both of you." His beige suit was wrinkled and stained, his eyes were sunken and sallow, and his chin was covered in a thick layer of salt and pepper stubble. "I haven't slept much since…since your car…" he swallowed the words, and squeezed his eyes shut, and exhaled hard through flaring nostrils. "I should have seen this," he said. "I should have known, it's my fucking job to fucking know."

"I think Tucker was abducted by aliens while we were gone," Elliot joked in a whisper, leaning into Olivia, making her snort and shake with light laughter, a brief respite from the hell they were sinking into.

"Fuck you," Tucker hissed back to him, "I'm serious!" He glared at Elliot, his nose burning and a thick vein throbbing under the skin of his neck. "You both could have been blown to bits, and now I find out that you weren't the target, someone was trying to save your asses, because the person who fucking gets paid to do that was actually trying to fucking…"

"Ed!" Elliot shouted, grabbing a hold of Tucker's shoulders. "Calm down! Man, just fucking breathe," he said, holding the man still. "Take it easy!"

"Easy," Tucker snorted, pushing Elliot away from him. "You two should be in a crumpled ball in the corner, and I'm the one losing my shit." He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "I'm sorry. I should have seen this happening, I should have caught on, to Cragen and Davis, you shouldn't…"

"Hey," Olivia's voice broke into his apology. "Cragen is a brilliant detective, he knew how to hide this," she said. "He also kept putting us into situations he knew would push our buttons, purposely keeping you too busy with us to notice what he was doing." She folded her arms and tried to smile at him. "I don't blame you, for this." Her eyes darted to the glass, seeing Cragen's smug face behind the two way mirror, and she shook her head. "I blame myself," she said. "I never should have…" her words tripped over a sob, caught in her throat, and she flattened her smile. "I knew better. I really did. I let my guard down, and I trusted…"

Her words were stopped when the door behind them opened, sending John Munch running into the room. "You two," he said, pulling Olivia into a hug and looking at Elliot over her shoulder. "You're okay? Cragen told us you were…"

"Yeah," Elliot said, stopping him, "We know what he told you." He reached to take Olivia out of Munch's arms and into his, but she moved away from him, shaking her head. He wouldn't let her pull away from him, not like this, not when he only just had her where he needed her the most. He ran, as she moved further faster, and he grabbed her arm, spinning her around and pulling her into him. He felt her break when wrapped his arms around her tightly, one hand splayed across her back the other on the back of her head, holding her against his chest. "Shh," he soothed, closing his eyes and resting his chin on the top of her head. "Baby, don't…don't cry."

"Stupid," she chided, talking to herself. Losing her breath on another hard cry, she shook in his arms. "How could I have…been so…fucking stupid," she cried. Her hot tears were falling fast now, landing in a pooling puddle on his shirt. He didn't seem to care, he just held her and kissed her forehead, and rocked her back and forth.

"You're not," he whispered, pulling her closer. "Honey, you're the most brilliant person I…"

"I trusted him," she interrupted, shaking her head again, trying to wipe her eyes. She swatted at her tears as though they offended her.

They did.

She laughed bitterly at herself. "I let myself trust him, I…I cared about him, and I should have known that I can't trust anyone, and it's easier if I don't let myself feel…"

"What are you saying?" he asked, cutting her off, hurt. He wrapped his fingers around his chin and pulled her head up, forcing her to look at him. "You don't trust me? You don't care about me anymore?"

She saw the fear and pain in his eyes, her trembling body weakened in his arms again, and with a sniffle, she closed her eyes. "Maybe I shouldn't," she whispered. "But I do. You…you're…damn it, you're the exception to every personal rule I have, and no matter what I do, I can't stop it." She rubbed her eyes and lifted her head again, looking at him. "I feel safe with you, I trust…you. But I know now that you're the only one that I can give that, too. I put stock in someone else, and look what happened! I won't make that mistake again."

"Baby," he spoke, his heart breaking for her, "You know that…that won't solve anything, and there are people in the world that you should put trust in, you know that better than anyone." He cupped her face and swiped tears away from her eyes with his thumbs. "I know you're hurt, I am, too. Bit I'm more pissed off, though, because he hurt you, and no one does that and lives." Her laugh was music to his ears, and he smoothed his hands down her back again. "There's my girl," he whispered, and he bent his head to kiss her.

She sighed, sinking deeper into him, and she closed her eyes. "Were you listening to him?" she asked, her voice soft as her cries subsided and her hands found solace on the rounds of his ass.

He swayed with her, dancing only to the beat of his heart, and he let out a slow breath. "You know I was," he said to her. "He said that…"

"Excuse me," Munch said, still standing on the side of the room, leaning against the wall. He narrowed his eyes over the frames of his glasses and waved a finger at the dancing duo. "What's this?"

Elliot felt Olivia pulling away but he tightened his grip on her. "What does it look like?" he asked, smirking. He winked at Munch, and then turned and kissed Olivia, a deep, loving kiss that made her fingers twist in the material of his shirt. He pulled his lips away from hers breathlessly. "Things are gonna be a little different around here, John," Elliot said.

Tucker, as if needing to prove he was still in the room, spoke up. "That's the understatement of the century." He rubbed his forehead and took a few steps closer to Olivia and Elliot. "Yeah, Stabler was listening," he said, jutting a thumb at Elliot, "But you deserve to get this kind of story face to face, so…go in there, and hear it from him."

Olivia choked, her eyes popped, and her hands tightened their hold on Elliot. She felt him pushing her toward the interrogation room door, holding her breath as she moved with him. She reached for the knob, but her hands were shaking too violently.

"I got it," he whispered, grabbing the brass and twisting, pushing the metal door open, and he took a bit too much pleasure in the horrified look on Cragen's face. "Surprise," he said, grinning mischievously.

Cragen shot to his feet, pointing at the two ghosts who'd just walked into the room. "They're…they're…" he turned fast and yelled at Porter, "You told me they were gone when you got to the hotel! That you didn't know where he took them!"

"Yeah, I did tell you that," Porter said, sarcasm and grim humor lacing his words. "Guess I was mistaken."

Cragen turned back to them, and he ran over to Olivia, immediately, pulling her into a hug. "You're okay," he whispered, and it sounded almost sincere.

She shoved him away and shook her head. "How could you?" Her eyes glinted with a murderous filter, one she normally reserved for the vilest of bastards they brought in, the ones who hurt their own children. "You put us through hell! For what? A few thousand dollars, and a high-profile collar?"

Cragen held up both hands. "It wasn't like that!" he yelled back. "I knew what he was gonna try to do, and I knew you two would never…" he squeezed his eyes shut, clamping two fingers over the bridge of his nose. "I gave you to him, knowing that you'd kill him before anything happened to either one of you!" He took a deep breath, exhaling hard.

Elliot shot back at him, then. "Bullshit," he barked. "We know! You were selling us, like used furniture! What, you couldn't make an even tried so you auctioned us off to the highest bidder?" He gave a bitter chuckle. "Fuck, man, Seventy-five grand? I'm not worth that, and she...she's worth so much more! And you really think nothing was gonna happen to us?"

"Elliot," Cragen said, slamming one fist down on the table, "You don't get it! That kind of money, tax free, would have been three times what I would make if I stuck it out in that stuffy office for another five years! The shit the two of you hand me every day, you and Fin constantly at each other's throat, Munch is two seconds away from retiring and he wastes the time by telling me secrets of the fucking government he decodes in the New York Times crossword puzzle, I can't spend another five fucking years dealing with that kind of aggravation!" He blinked, realizing what he'd said, and who he'd said it to. "You would have shot him before he laid a finger on Olivia, try to tell me I'm wrong!"

"Oh, so you thought you'd make some easy money and get rid of the only person who could pin anything on you," Olivia spat, but then she gasped. "Oh, my God," she breathed, her hand flying over her mouth. It slowly fell, searching blindly for Elliot's. Grabbing and clutching his wrist, she shook her head and gaped at Cragen. "That's exactly what you wanted to…"

"No one was ever going to get hurt!" Cragen yelled. "You would have taken down one of the most wanted men in the country, I would have been able to retire early and live debt-free, this wasn't supposed to…"

"You didn't think handing us over to some sick fuck, who, by the way, had a whole different plan for us, was going to hurt us?" Elliot's words were dripping with disdain, disappointment, and disgust.

Cragen furrowed his brow. "Different plan for…"

"Yeah," Elliot snapped. "You told him we'd do anything to save each other, so instead of making us hurt each other to save our own lives, he was going to see how far we'd go to keep each other safe!" He twisted his wrist and laced his fingers between Olivia's, balling up his other fist into a tight knot. "You son of a bitch, you're worse than the fucks we put in the cage! He had a knife to my throat! He got that close, he could have easily…"

"Oh, my God," Cragen hissed, falling back into the metal chair. "I didn't think he'd get that close."

Elliot leaned over, gritting his teeth, and he spoke right into Cragen's ear. "His greasy hands were all over her. Thank God she's captivating, because if he didn't get lost in her eyes, he would have sliced me open and taken her…done god knows what to her, killed her…for less than what you make in a year." He huffed through his nose, like an angry bull, and he said, "Look at her. Look at her!" He waited until Cragen's glassed-over eyes shifted toward Olivia. "No one was supposed to get hurt, right? She looks pretty fucking hurt to me."

Cragen dropped his head into his hands, shaking slightly as he started to cry, realizing the reality of what could have been. "I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

Elliot was about to tell Cragen to save his worthless words, but he felt a hard tug on his shirt. He turned, seeing her behind him, pleading with him to take her out of the room. "Let's just go. Porter isn't finished with him."

He nodded at her, licking his lips, and he shot Cragen another pitiful look as he took hold of her hand and walked with her, out of the cold room where betrayal was thick in the air and the reeking stench of loss hung over their heads.

Once in the pit, he pulled her to him again, kissing her hard, trying to reassure her that he would always keep her safe. "I love you," he whispered once, before reclaiming her lips. His hands against her cheeks caught freshly falling tears, and he deepened his kiss in attempt to kill the pain and fill her with the love she deserved.

Sniffling, she brought her hands to his face, holding him close as she whispered, "I love you, too."

Tucker, trying to ignore their physical connection, coughed to garner their attention. "I, uh, hate to break up this…whatever this is…but, we have a problem."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "We have had enough problems in the past week to last us a lifetime," he said. "Look, yes, okay? We were kissing. I was kissing her, she was kissing me, we were…fucking kissing. I knew when I made my move on her that this would eventually…"

"What?" Tucker interjected, an annoyed look on his face. "No, not about your relationship. You two could fuck on the front steps of One PP, and I would look the other way," he said. Then he smirked. "Or maybe I'd watch, but you know what I meant." He let his arms fall and he gave a defeated shrug. "Obviously, this unit needs a new CO. As soon as possible." He looked at the door leading into the squadroom. "Munch doesn't want the gig, I already talked to him, and the only other people who passed that exam…"

"Are me and her," Elliot finished for him, his expression blank, as gross realization set in. He looked at her, and then back at Tucker, and he said the only thing that came to mind. "Who's it gonna be?"

 **A/N: DOINK DOINK?**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** **"** **"You many have noticed I have a temper ... but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it."** **― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey**

 **DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine...yet.**

"You sure you made the right decision, here?" Tucker scratched behind his ear, leaning to his left as he shot Elliot a questioning glance.

Elliot nodded, his arms crossed as he leaned up against his desk. "The only time either of us is really willing to take orders from each other is in the bedroom," he said with a smirk and a wink.

"I didn't need to hear that," Tucker groaned, wincing. "Look, for now, it needs to be one of you. Could you just…"

"No," Elliot said firmly. "We talked about it, for a long time, and while, eventually, it's a goal for both of us to be behind a desk barking out assignments, right now…" he bit his lip and took a deep breath. "We just found footing as being something…else. Anything that could wreck that, before we even gave it a fair shot, is off the table."

Tucker squeezed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "You enjoy making my job painful, don't you? You sadistic son of a bitch."

"Just trying to make ourselves happy, for the first time in years," Elliot said, shrugging innocently. "I'm sure if you call around, someone will want that desk."

Tucker rolled his eyes. "I know that, but I also know that this unit doesn't play well with others." He turned his gaze toward the back of the room, where Olivia was talking to a rather panicked young woman, and he smiled at the way she seemed to calm and assuaged the girl, the warmth that radiated from the hardened detective. "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't the two of you, uh, man your battle stations together, at least until I find someone willing to pull this unit out of the muck."

Elliot furrowed his brow. "You mean, like, co-captains? Has that ever been done before?"

"Happens all the time," Tucker said, simpering. He saw the disbelieving look on Elliot's face. "Okay, so more like, there are deputized officers who step in so unit captains can take the day off, but considering neither of you knows what the hell a day off is, you can both…handle things. Work together, even keel, keep the peace, ya dig?"

"What the hell, are you Shaft, all of a sudden?" Elliot joked.

Tucker narrowed his eyes. "Please?"

"Fine," Elliot grumbled, holding up a hand. "But, uh, my first act as one of the big guns, is giving me and Liv an early lunch." He chuckled. "I have to talk to her about something."

Tucker scoffed. "Unbelievable," he mumbled. "Make it fast. I'll stick around till you get back, just, uh, wait until she's done saving that woman's life," he said, jutting a thumb in the direction of Olivia, who had managed to get a smile out of the victim.

Elliot grinned and nodded. "Of course," he said, slapping Tucker in the arm as he moved toward Olivia. He smiled softly as he watched the woman hug her, and snuck up behind her as the woman left the room. "That was incredible," he whispered.

She turned slightly, looking at him over her shoulder. "You said that last night," she quipped coyly.

"Gonna say it again in about forty minutes," he laughed, wagging his brows. "Come upstairs with me."

Her eyes widened. "What? Are you out of your…"

"I need to talk to you," he interrupted, looking at her seriously. He took her hand and pulled her gently, coaxing her up the steps to the cribs. He led her through the door, shutting and locking it behind him, and gave her a gentle shove into the further back room of beds.

Curious, she sat on the first mattress and looked at him expectantly.

He tugged on his tie and climbed over her, kissing her fast as he pressed her down, flattening her on the bed.

Laughing, she moved her lips away from his. "You said you wanted to talk."

"I do," he said, "After more kissing." He slanted his mouth over hers and rocked his hips. He moaned into the kiss, catching her soft mews, and smoothed his hands up her sides. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you so much."

"Love you, too," she said, but it was muffled by the fierce kiss of his lips. She felt his hands slipping under her shirt, and she knew what he was trying to do to her, for her. She gave in, wrapping her arms around his neck, and she let him consume her the way he so clearly and so desperately wanted.

He worked his hands under the cotton of her button-down, and he palmed over her silk covered breasts, chuckling to himself when her nipples hardened at his teasing touch.

She gasped again, making him grab at her flesh, and she moaned, arching her back, bucking upward into him. "Elliot," she said, the word a warning as she felt him begin to unbutton her shirt.

"Shh," he silenced, taking advantage of the situation, knowing that no one was around to scold or punish, because, at the moment, they were in charge. He worked the last button open and let the cotton fall away from her body. He lightly skimmed his fingertips over her stomach, moaning as he felt her muscles twitch under his touch as he got the shirt off of her completely. He drew slow circles over her navel as he kissed her deeply and then moved his hands lower to the waistband of her pants.

She lost herself in him, her own hands working their way into his black slacks, grabbing hold of his thick hardness. She felt his chest heave and the vibrations of his moan ripple through her from his kiss as she stroked him. She whimpered when his hands left her skin, but moaned lowly when she realized he was taking off his own shirt.

He pulled his tie off and threw it, and his shirt, to the floor beside the bed. He eyed her seductively and then slowly reached beneath her to unhook her bra, pulling it off and away, and adding it to the pile of clothes below, chuckling.

She moved her hands around his chest, a deep moan leaving her lips when his muscles twitched under her fingers. "Damn, El," she said, her lip caught between her teeth.

He chuckled proudly, leaned over toward her, and kissed her as one hand slipped back into her pants, the other teasing her left nipple.

She moaned and arched her back, returning her hand to its place around his dick, pulling and twisting as she stroked him.

His fingers moved again, spurred on by her sudden eager cooperation, and he inched them deeper into her pants, skirting them under the silky material of her underwear. He felt her body tremble as he lightly brushed along the skin of her inner thigh, and he caught her moan in his throat when he pressed a thick finger into her.

"Time," she garbled, kissing him harder, stroking him faster. With her free hand, she shoved the fabric of his pants around his hips, and the once hesitant participant instantly became the aggressor. "El," she said breathlessly, "More. Please."

Not one to make her beg, he thrust another finger into her wet heat, moaned at the feeling of her, and yanked her pants down roughly, taking the silk with them. He pulled his hand out of her, swatted her working fingers away from his body, and peered down at her hungrily. He took a breath, simply watching her reddened face and wide, wonton eyes, and then finally took aim. He held her gaze as he thrust his hips, pushing into her, stretching and filling her. He loved the drugged look on her face as he moved, and when he hit her depths, he moaned, watching her head fall backward. "Fuck," he hissed, stilling and adjusting, loving the way she was already tightening around him, pulling him in even deeper.

"Elliot," she moaned, so quiet, with closed eyes and arched back. Her nails dug into his back as he started to thrust, and she hooked her feet around his legs, locking him to her. "Oh, my God."

"Fuck, Liv," he spat, his body slamming into hers at a brutal pace. He knew they didn't have much time, and he really did need to talk to her. "Shit, baby. God damn." He heard the slapping sounds of their skin with every thrust of his hips, and the way her body moved under his told him that he was hitting all of the right spots.

Nothing had ever felt like this before, for either of them, and they knew that it meant something powerful, something almost sacred, lied between and within them, something that they had never, and would never, experience with anyone else.

She curled her fingers more, her nails piercing his skin, making him moan louder.

"Oh, fuck, Liv," he spat, his own head falling forward as hers fell backward again. "Look at me," he demanded, feeling her start to pulse around him. "Look at me." He moaned her name when her eyes met his, and he felt her clamp around him, her inner walls beating and milking him, and with three more hard thrusts, he had her seized and curled around him, a string of furious curse words flying from her lips as she bit and clawed at his skin. "Holy shit," he hissed, his jaw clenched as he shot hotly into her, his body freezing and overheating at the same time.

It took a moment for her vision to return, for her brain to defog, and when she came down from her incredible high, she was tied around him like a knot, her head buried in the crook of his neck. "Holy shit," she panted, "Oh, my God."

He laughed, peppering her with kisses as he tried to slow his own heartbeat. He cupped her chin with one hand, kissed her slowly, deeply, and whispered soft "I love you'"s against her lips.

"I love you, too," she whispered back, her hands running up and down his back.

He brushed his nose against hers, kissed her again, and looked into her eyes. "I got used to being with you," he said, blinking once. He felt a sharp sting behind his nose and wasn't sure why he was getting so emotional. He felt his arms begin to weaken, having held himself up for a while, and he scooped them around her and rolled over onto his back. He sighed contentedly as she dropped her head to his chest, and he kissed the crown of her head. "I can't go back to living without you."

"Are you…" she popped her head up. "You think you have to? Oh, God, did you take the job?"

"No, no!" he laughed. "God, no, baby," he said, kissing her again. "I just…with everything being finalized and the kids, uh, adjusting…I think it would be a good idea if…" he sighed again. "I called the rental manager of that four bedroom place you were thinking about. I, uh, I wired him the money."

"Money? For what?" she asked, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

"I put down a deposit, we need to pick up the keys tomorrow." He ran his fingers through her hair. "I'll help you pack tonight, and we can be in by Friday."

She stared at him for a moment. "You're serious?"

He nodded. "We're doing this. I told you, I can't go back to…" He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. Her lips were on his, her tongue probing his mouth, her hands clawing and clutching at him, her hips rolling again.

She knew it was a line she was afraid to cross, a move she was terrified to make, but now that he had done it, it seemed less petrifying and more perfect. She only hoped that she wouldn't talk herself out of being happy with him.

But then again, maybe it was not herself she needed to worry about.

 **A/N: Whattt?**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find? - Ridley Scott**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.**

She'd forgotten how horrible the stench of O'Malley's truly was. The odorous blend of liquor, cigarette smoke, BO, and desperation that used to cling to her clothes and her hair once upon a time now made her nauseous. She checked the time on her phone, her bobbing knees betraying her impatience. "Come on," she groaned, "Where the hell are you?"

She sighed again, coughed as she tried to breathe, and signaled the bartender for another whiskey sour.

"Sorry, sorry," a soft voice spoke from her left, its owner tossing a black jacket over the back of the high stool. "Fucking Langan."

Olivia's eyes widened. "You're late because you were fucking Langan?" she gasped.

"What!? No!" The blonde woman rolled her eyes as she plopped into the cushioned seat. "Hell no!" She settled closer to the bar. "He asked for two recesses, and then spent twenty minutes asking the same question over and over in different ways. Fucking ass."

Laughing, Olivia shook her head quickly and took the freshly mixed drink in a short glass from the bartender. "What did you want to talk to me about? The case?"

"Uh, no," the blonde pointed to Olivia's glass and then to herself, silently telling the barman she wanted one of the same. She was quiet for a moment before she got Olivia to look her way, and then she glared with narrow eyes. "You're actually moving in with him? Benson, are you out of your mind?"

Olivia paled. Her eyes glazed over and her heart began to pound against her chest. "What are you..." she swallowed back hard. "Who the hell told you that, Alex?"

Alex Cabot licked her lips. "It's true, then?" She grazed her teeth over her lip and took a shallow breath. "You've only technically been with him for, what, a week?"

"Almost two months," Olivia defended. "What's your point?"

"Two months," Alex mumbled. "Okay, so in the first two moths you were with Michael, you wouldn't even spend the night at his place. First two months with Porter, you couldn't even last a few hours together, you looked for excuse after excuse..."

"There's a reason for that," Olivia said, cutting into her sentence, smirking. She sipped her drink and asked, again, "What the hell is your actual point?"

"Up until today, I thought Elliot was happily married," Cabot said, the words coming out snidely. "With a litter of kids." She pointed a finger. "And you were an eternal bachelorette with a fear of commitment and the freedom to fuck any guy, any time, anywhere, and you were happy about it."

Olivia scoffed. "That was never me," she snapped, "I wasn't...I wasn't happy." She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, ignoring the urge to choke on the thick smoky air. "Why does this even concern you?" She ran a hand through her hair. "I'm really getting tired of people thinking they have a right to stick their noses into my relationship."

"Is that what you think it is?" Alex chuckled. "Did you even stop to think...really think...about how this all happened? The situation you were in...that spurred the both of you into this crisis mindset and you latched onto each other. You lived through it, yay, and he suddenly files for divorce and buys a townhouse with you?" She blinked twice and licked her lips again. "Once everything calms down, you know he's gonna regret it all. He's Catholic, Benson. Very. Divorce? Not a good thing in the eyes of the church, when it hits him, he's gonna..."

"Alex," Olivia interrupted, "He actually filed for divorce before...before anything happened. Who the fuck told you we bought a townhouse?"

"I'm dating a real estate agent," Alex said sharply. "Which you would know if you took your head out of the clouds and came back down to reality." She looked down, suddenly aware the bartender had dropped her drink in front of her. She took a sip, made a face, and then said, "There's still time, you can call and get the deposit back, I'll help you redecorate your..."

"I'm moving in with him," Olivia said firmly. "This is happening, and you know damn well that I've been in love with him for..."

"And he knew it!" Alex yelled. "He knew it, and he fucking milked it for all it was worth! How many times did he call you for favors, ask you to cover for him at work, lie for him, huh? He knew you'd do it because you were crazy about him." She took a long sip of her drink and smacked her lips as she slammed the glass down. "You're caving to him, again, because he knows he can do or say anything, and you'll let him, you know you will."

Olivia took down the rest of her drink in one gulp, slammed the glass onto the bar, and turned to Alex, fuming. "He loves me, Alex, you're the one who was always saying how obvious it was, and how devoted he would be if..." her eyes narrowed. "What are you doing? I thought you were my friend."

"I am." Alex sighed and closed her eyes. "I don't want to see you get hurt. Not by him. The damage would be irreversible and I couldn't live with that." She opened her eyes and looked at Olivia. "If this happened slowly, one step at a time, maybe I wouldn't be so damned skeptical, but, Jesus Christ, the ink isn't even dry on his divorce papers and you're already halfway to married. Think about this. He's just lost the only life he's known for fifteen years, his wife, his children, the home he had to scrimp and save and beg and borrow for...that's all gone, and you honestly believe that he is in the right frame of mind to start all over again, with you, this fast?"

"Matter of fact, I am." His voice was cool, eerily calm, and dripping with decadence despite the anger and annoyance swelling inside of him. "Just what in the fucking hell do you think you're doing, Cabot?"

"Trying to protect my friend," Alex said, this time looking Elliot in the eyes. "How did you know where we were? You have her microchipped or something?"

Elliot chuckled. "Never," he spat. He put both of his hands on Olivia's hips and lifted her up, and as if to drive his point home, he sat on her stool and pulled her into his lap, wrapping her legs around him. "She told me she was meeting you here, you know, we do communicate with each other." He splayed his palms across her back and looked up at her with a grin. "Kiss me."

Shaking her head with a light chuckle, amused at his arrogance, she kissed him softly, slowly. When they broke apart, she watched his head turn toward Alex. "I've been in love with her for so long, Alex. Nothing was official until...until that car blew up, that's why this seems so fast to you, but this has taken so damn long to happen. We just...we waited for years to have this, to be with each other, we didn't want to wait anymore. I'm not using her, she's not a rebound, and I'm not just getting her out of my system, okay? I'm just as devoted to her as you know she is to me, and I would do anything she asked, give her anything and everything she wanted. This isn't a one way street, Cabot. Even if it was, we'd be in the same fucking car, anyway."

"I just think...you both need to think," the blonde lawyer said, sighing and rolling her eyes. "This is going to end badly, there will be consequences, and..."

"This isn't going to end," Elliot said, cutting her off again. "My first marriage ended because it started when I was seventeen, all right? I didn't know what love was, how to be a husband, and I'm still fucking figuring out this fatherhood thing. I grew up, and I changed, and I learned more about myself and what I wanted and needed, and then I met Liv...and there it all was, real, right in front of me, and I couldn't fucking have it."

Alex was stunned into silence, twirling the plastic stirrer around in her glass as she stared back at Elliot.

He smiled, then, a soft and genuine smile. "I made so many mistakes in my life, got so many things wrong. As soon as I was sure God would forgive me, I talked to Kathy, talked to a lawyer, and finally...for once...did something right." He felt Olivia's hands on his face, his eyes widened when his head was jerked to the left, but he grinned when he saw her lips aiming for his. He kissed her eagerly, passionately, his hands still on her back.

They were so lost in their moment that neither one noticed Alex Cabot getting up, dropping a fifty dollar bill on the bar, and walking away, and neither one noticed that she never, not once, looked back.

 **A/N: Another grey area crossed, but what comes next is definitely black and white.**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find? - Ridley Scott**

 **A/N 2: TO CLEAR UP ANY CONFUSION, I realize now my mistake, I apologize, this was posted without it's actual ending. I have edited and reposted.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer. Some dialogue pulled from the episode "Taken" and its deleted scenes.**

 _"What are you talking about?" She blinked twice, tilted her head, and flattened her palms on the surface of her desk._

 _"We have the extra room," he said, his smirk wicked enough to light fire to a confessional. "We, uh, have a lot of extra room."_

 _"Now?" she asked, surprised. "Please, tell me you're..."_

 _"I'm serious," he interrupted her, the smirk now settled into a smile, but his eyes conveying his honesty. "If you want her to, I mean, if you think it would help, I..."_

 _"I know we're in a good place right now," she said, stopping him, "But I think living with me...and four kids...would drive her right back to the bottle on a daily basis."_

 _He shrugged. "It was just a thought," he said to her. "The offer stands, ya know, if you ever..."_

 _Cragen's voice interrupted him from across the room. "Hey, uh, Olivia, you got a minute?"_

 _Olivia looked at Elliot. "Why am I in trouble? What did I do?"_

 _Smugly, Elliot replied, "Me," and he licked his lips and smoothed down his tie._

 _"He doesn't know about that," she chuckled, getting out of her chair. "Not yet." She tilted her head. "Does he?"_

 _Elliot shook his head at her. "I would be the one getting chewed out, if he did." He mouthed something else to her that made her smile, and he enjoyed the view as she walked toward Cragen's office._

 _"We just got a break in the Miller case, Cap, can this wait?" she asked, pushing the door open slightly, hoping she could just go back to her desk. Back to Elliot. Back to work._

 _"Come in," Cragen said, seriousness in his eyes. "Close the door."_

 _"What?" Her heart pounded in her throat, she thought the absolute worst, that he knew everything and this was her last moment as a detective with Manhattan SVU._

 _"Sit down, Olivia," Cragen told her, gesturing to an empty seat next to a uniformed officer._

 _She looked at the cop and went white, and the only thing she could say was, "What?"_

 _Cragen moved closer to her. "Really, I think you should sit down."_

 _"Just tell me," she said, her stomach knotting up and her heart racing. "What's going on?"_

 _Cragen took another step toward her. "Your mother had an accident." He saw her pale and start to shake. "I'm so sorry, she didn't make it."_

 _Her lip trembling, she asked, "How?" It came out just above a whisper._

 _Cragen felt his heart crack and his protective paternal side won out. "She fell down the subway steps."_

 _"No," Olivia said, unshed tears hanging at the corners of her eyes. "My mother never takes the subway."_

 _Knowing she already knew the truth, Cragen caved. "The entrance outside The Velvet Room."_

 _"She was drunk," Olivia whispered, a bitter smile on her face. It wasn't a question, it was an acknowledgment. She'd always known she'd be in this exact situation. Part of her was prepared. She scraped her teeth over her lower lip, nodded at Cragen and the cop, and walked out of the office._

 _Elliot rose to his feet and rushed over to her, seeing right away that something was wrong._

 _She wrapped herself around him and she didn't care who saw it. "She's gone," she whispered into his chest. "It's over."_

 _"What? What happened? Who?" He asked as he peppered small kisses to the top of her head. He looked up at Cragen and the young officer in his uniform, and he knew. "I'm taking her home," he said, and no one argued._

 _The car ride was quiet, when Olivia wasn't on the phone with people she didn't know or even want to know. She'd called everyone she could remember, and she called the funeral home they'd used for her grandmother, only to be told to come by in an hour, they'd already have everything handled._

 _"Honey?" he said, his words and voice cautioned._

 _"I'm fine," she said, staring out the window. "I've been ready for this...for longer than I care to admit."_

 _"Liv, baby," he said, this time his tone more prodding. "You know I've seen you cry before, so have the kids, you don't have to bottle..."_

 _"I'm not," she said, turning to him as he turned the wheel. "I promise, I...I'm fine." She waited until he pulled into a parking spot and then leaned over the console to kiss him, slowly, deeply. She brushed his cheeks with the back of her hands as she pulled away from him._

 _He nuzzled her nose for a moment and asked, "You sure you don't want me to come in with you?"_

 _"No, they said it would only take a minute," she said. And then she chuckled. "My mom, the compulsive perfectionist, had to plan her own damn funeral." She shook her head. "Without me." She kissed his cheek and opened the car door._

 _"I love you," he said, knowing she needed the affirmation now more than usual._

 _"I love you, too, El," she said with a small smile. It faded, though, as she turned her head and looked at the brown, brick, building. Taking a deep breath, she swallowed back years of guilt and a small amount of relief, and got out of the car. Her heavy footfalls hit the asphalt with a clarity she'd never heard before, and she turned back to make sure Elliot was keeping his promise and staying in the car. This was one thing she felt she had to do on her own, she owed her mother that much._

 _She pulled the heavy glass door to the funeral home open and ignored the smiling face of the woman attempting to greet her. Frivolous pleasantries were not going to play today, it wasn't the time to pretend to be happy or nice. She found her own way down a long hallway, peeking into each door before finally finding the room she was meant to be in five minutes ago. Punctuality, it seemed, failed her today, too._

 _"Sorry, I..." she began, interrupting a man talking to a woman, who seemed to be terribly distraught over her own loss. She stopped mid-apology, wondering why she hadn't felt that kind of grief or pain at all. Suddenly her lateness didn't seem so important._

 _The man turned to her and smiled, too brightly for his profession. "Miss Benson, come in," he said, making room for her to fully enter the room. He gestured politely to another gentleman, perched behind a desk. "This is Reed Skye, your mother's attorney."_

 _Skye stood rather quickly and smoothed out his jacket before grinning at her._

 _"Oh," she said, taken aback. She held out a hand, shaking the lawyer's. "I didn't realize you were going to be here." Dropping Skye's hand, she took another deep breath and thought, only for a moment, that maybe she needed Elliot with her, after all. "I understand my mother made...some arrangements."_

 _"Yes," Reed nodded as he pointed to the desk to his left. "I was just seeing to them."_

 _She nodded and swallowed hard again. "So I don't need to pick out a casket or a plot or..."_

 _"Everything's been taken care of," the funeral director cut her off. "Her favorite flowers, the music...I know she didn't want to be a burden to you."_

 _She scoffed subtly. Her mother had left enough burdens behind. "Then why did I need to be here?" The question came off more genuinely inquisitive than annoyed, thankfully, but there were a thousand things going through her mind and she didn't really want to be in a funeral home while thinking them._

 _"Your mother specified one, additional detail to be taken care of at this time," the lawyer spoke professionally monotonous, taking a thin envelope out of his pocket and pulling a small ket from it. He handed it to her, almost as if he expected her to know what it was. Seeing the look on her face, he said, "It's to a safe-deposit box," he dropped the key and small, blue envelope into her hand._

 _She took them between her fingertips and looked up at the lawyer. "Containing...?"_

 _"That I don't know," he said honestly._

 _She sighed again as she shoved the key back into the envelope, which had the bank and box number printed on it. "Okay," she said softly, her voice breaking. She nodded her thanks and a silent goodbye, turned, and walked out of the room, back down the hallway, and the only thought in her head was that her mother had too many secrets._

 _She practically punched the door open and ran to the car, getting in and slamming the door. "Need another favor."_

 _"Anything," he said, switching gears and sliding the shift into reverse. "What?"_

 _"We have to go to First Republic Bank on Madison Ave." She held up the little envelope. "She had a box there, and apparently, made me the authorized signer and beneficiary." She looked into his eyes as he shifted into drive. "I'm probably gonna need you with me this time."_

 _"Oh, Liv," he said sweetly. "I'm always going to be with you. Even when...even when you try to push me away, I'm not going anywhere, ever." He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles and drove off in the direction of the bank._

 _The ride was slightly less somber than before but Olivia was still trying to call people, the ones she could remember and look up online._

 _"We're here," he told her softly, tapping her knee. He watched her hold up a finger and finish her call, and when she hung up she said, "None of these people knew...none of them had any idea...the hell she put me through." She coughed once. "That we put each other through."_

 _"It doesn't matter," he told her. "What matters is you worked through it, and you were happy. You found...closure."_

 _She smiled and nodded, holding back tears. "Let's go see what she was hiding from me, huh?" She didn't give him time to answer, she got out of the car and headed right for the revolving doors._

 _The wait wasn't long and a man in a suit led her and Elliot to a room in the back of the bank. He took her key and left, only to return with a large, metal box. He handed the box to Elliot and the key to Olivia. "If you need anything else, I'll be right outside."_

 _"Thank you," Elliot said, smiling. As the man left them alone, he dropped the box onto the metal table. He watched her shaking hands straighten the box and push and turn the key._

 _She held her breath as she heard the click, and slowly, she lifted the hinged lid. "Cash," she said, shifting some wrapped piles of money. "Ring boxes, what is..." she grabbed a cassette tape, turned it around in her hands. "What the hell is this?"_

 _"Liv," he said, "look." He pointed to the last thing in the box, and he looked up at her. "It's got your name on it."_

 _She put the tape down, next to the velvet ring boxes, and reached in to grab the long envelope. She lifted it, looked at it for a long moment, and finally tore it open. She pulled out a letter, her mother's handwriting on a yellowed piece of paper. Unfolding it, she moved closer to Elliot. She needed his support in more ways than one._

 _"My dearest Olivia," she read, "It is time you know the truth. About your life, your heritage, your very existence. I'm sorry to have kept it from you for so long, and sorry I have put you through so much agony over it. What you do know is true, but what I've hidden is something I can only pray that you forgive. You are Italian and Irish, blended with my English roots it makes you rather exotic, I think. You come from a long line of healthy people who've live long full lives, and there is no history of any physical or mental illness to worry about. But now, I have to tell you, I lied to you, and to many people, about the identity of your father. He isn't a shadow in an alley, he isn't a faceless monster. I hope you'll come to me and when you do, I will tell you everything. Happy eighteenth birthday, my sweet girl. I do hope you can forgive me for driving the wedge between us so sharply, and that we can talk this out and mend what I've broken. I love you, always. Forever, Momma."_

 _There was silence as she refolded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, and turned to Elliot. "She knows who he is," she said, shaking. "El, Jesus, she knew the whole time!" She fell into his arms and let herself do what she'd been trying to delay. She cried._

 _He'd taken her home without protest. He made sure she ate something, they took a long, hot shower together, and he wrapped her in his arms as they got what little sleep they could._

 _In the morning, he helped her into a simple black dress, ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her. "You sure you don't want to talk about..."_

 _"No," she said firmly. "I'm just...processing." She bit her lip and grabbed a small black purse. She looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a small smile. "You look..."_

 _"Hot, I know," he teased, striking an arrogant pose as he tugged on the beige jacket of his suit. He softened, then. "You look beautiful." He said. "You always look...so beautiful." He kissed her once. "I'll be right there, with you," he promised, and he led her out of their front door, to the car, on their way to say goodbye to Serena Benson._

 _When they arrived, they saw that the room was filled with white lilies and roses. There was a slow, soft violin sonata playing, and they silver casket laid closed, in the middle of the room, with a framed photo of Serena on top._

 _She felt him squeeze her hand, and she squeezed back just as tightly before turning to kiss him. "I love you," she whispered._

 _"I love you, Liv," he said to her, but dropped her hand and pulled away a bit. "Cragen's here," he said. "I'll go." He walked toward their captain, leaving her at the end of the aisle, in front of the casket. She watched handfuls of people walk by her, crying and pressing kissed hands to the casket. A few of them hugged her, said they were sorry, but they never knew how much grey area hung between her and the woman they mourned._

 _"Your mother was very special," a man she didn't know moved in front of her and clutched both of her hands tightly. He spouted some biblical verse and a rehearsed apology on behalf of her mother's colleagues at Columbia University, where she taught one class, once a week, twenty years ago. He squeezed her hands again and he walked away, unaware that she hadn't listened to or cared about anything he'd said._

 _She clenched her jaw, rocked on her heels for a moment, and shook her head slightly in utter disbelief. She was in a room filled with people mourning a woman they didn't really know. Or was it a mother she didn't know?_

 _She turned to glare at the grey casket as she felt a large, warm hand sliding up her back. "Liar," she spat at the framed photo of her mother, but she leaned into the warmth of the body behind her._

 _"Anything I can do for you?" Elliot's smooth voice whispered, his face only an inch away from nuzzling her neck._

 _She shook her head as he wrapped his arm tighter around her, pulling her closer, and she tried her damnedest not to cry or throw something. She gave into his hold, sinking into him, as she finally spotted faces of people who were there for her, who knew the truth. She offered a half-smile to Jeffries, and then turned back to Elliot. "I feel like such an idiot," she said, a bitter laugh breaking up what would've been sobs, if she'd let them._

 _"No, no, don't," he soothed, tuning his hands over her shoulders and searching for her eyes. He knew she'd calm down if she looked into his eyes. It was part of what made them perfect. "Listen, if you just...wanna talk later..." he saw her focus on someone else, and he knew she'd gone somewhere mentally he didn't like. He turned to see who had suddenly clouded her over. "Who's that?"_

 _"My mother's oldest friend," she looked at him, ran her tongue along the inside of her lips and cheek, and said, "and drinking buddy." With new determination, she straightened up and said, "Excuse me," feeling his warm hands slip away from her body as she walked over to the older woman, whom she felt truly had no right to be there._

 _Before she could speak, though, the woman wrapped her arms around her and squeezed. "Olivia," she cried._

 _"Let go," Olivia said as she pulled away. She glared at the woman with anger and hurt behind her eyes. "I read the letter."_

 _"What letter?" the woman seemed stunned._

 _"Was it a joke?" Olivia's anger was bubbling to the surface now, and though she couldn't see it, Elliot was heading right for her, ready to stop her from exploding. "Was it something the two of you just cooked up one day, after polishing off a bottle of Chivvus?"_

 _The woman shook her head, irritated. "Olivia," she chided, shaking her head disgustedly._

 _"You know who he is," she said, the accusation thick on her words. And then a demand. "Tell me."_

 _"Who?" the woman asked, but she knew what was heading her way._

 _Olivia's voice rose, along with her emotion. "My father!"_

 _The woman looked around, more concerned with being caught in a scene than putting Olivia's mind at ease._

 _"Who is he?" Olivia asked again, grabbing the woman's arm, and her attention. "If she told anyone, she told you. Who is he?"_

 _"Olivia, stop this, please," the woman begged. "All I know is that your mother loved you..."_

 _"Give me his name," Olivia snapped back, not willing to listen to any more lies about her mother's compassion or empathy._

 _"There wasn't a day she didn't suffer over this," the woman said with tears in her eyes. "Why do you think she drank?"_

 _"You went to grad-school with her," Olivia dismissed, pushing off the woman's claim to know what had driven Serena Benson to drink for years before they'd even met. "Give me his name."_

 _"Robert Spencer," the woman finally conceded. "He's a professor of psychiatry at Marist."_

 _Olivia's eyes welled up with tears, a name she'd been searching for for her whole life, a name that her partner and lover had driven himself mad over trying to fish out of computer systems and mugshots, uttered from the lips of someone who had known for decades, and never said a damn thing. "Thank you," she barely whispered, and she walked away, again, not knowing Elliot was only half a step behind her._

The gasp that left his lips as he popped up from his spot on the couch hurt his chest and lungs. He rubbed his eyes and tried to slow his heart. It was hard to tell where memory stopped and dream began, where his truth and what he wishes was true blurred together. "Liv," he whispered to himself, as he rose and walked into the bedroom. With one hand still pressed to the door, he saw her face, bathed in the moon and neon light pouring in from the window.

He moved closer, slowly, sidestepping unpacked boxes and reached out for her. He smiled, knowing he'd fallen asleep on the couch while she was in the shower, and she didn't have the heart to wake him up. "I promise," he told her, his vision and fogged brain finally clearing away the grey areas between fact and fiction, "I'm going to find him." He leaned over and pressed his lips to her forehead, hearing her whisper-moan, and he smiled again. He straightened and toed his way to the box nearest the closet door, lifted one of the cardboard flaps, and picked up a small cassette tape off of the top of the pile of things inside. He looked at Olivia again. "I'll find him."

 **A/N: Will we find out what is on the cassette tape? Want to know? Huh!?**


	17. Chapter 17

****A/N: The world would be less problematic if only existed shades of grey. - Anonymous.****

 ** **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.****

He'd listened to the tape countless times, his eyes red with exhaustion, burned by unshed tears. Not for himself, no, but for the woman he loved. The woman whose life was about to change in a million different ways. Again.

With a heavy sigh and a final sip of his black coffee, he rolled a kink out of his neck, popped the tape out of the small player at his side, and, gripping it too tightly in his hand, he rose to his feet. He cleared his throat and exhaled painfully, his free hand winding around the cold, silver knob of the back room he'd been occupying for the last hour and a half. He looked over his shoulder at the small laptop and empty coffee mug, seemingly mocking him, and he shook away any traces of guilt. None of this was his fault. Hell, he was barely a year old when this all went down.

The few steps to the squadroom felt more like miles, his chest tightening the closer he got to the pen, to her. "Liv," he croaked out, his voice betraying his weakened state.

She turned, a crooked accusatory smile on her face. "And where the hell have you been, while I..." she paused, as if noticing every single hair on his body standing on end and the disaster waiting to hit. "What's wrong."

"I had this...this weird dream last night, one I...just haven't been able to shake." He ran a hand down his face, "Half memory half fantasy but all so...so fucking real." He licked his lips. "I remembered something that happened...when your mom died. When you found that..."

"Letter..." she mumbled. "Oh, my God, I...I let that go, a long time ago, Elliot, you know we tried to..."

"I called Agent Hollister, he looked up files and...and he told me every one of the aliases his brother used to get...to get what he wanted. Robert Spencer was one of them. That's why we couldn't find the guy. There are a handful of others, including, um...one you probably know. That your mom...probably knew, too."

She blinked. "What are you saying?"

Wordlessly, he slapped the tape into her hand. "Your mother's, um...interrogation tape."

She chuckled. "Please, I listened to that thing a million times, and you know nothing ever..."

"The second one," he interrupted. "The one you never...you could never..." he threw away the rest of his sentence. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, scraping his teeth along it so tightly it left drag-marks. "She told the whole story, stone cold sober."

Her eyes had narrowed, dropping from his worried gaze to the black plastic in her hand. "You already...?"

"Fifty times," he answered her unfinished question. "I plugged every bit of information into the system, and, fuck, no one else ever had! I mean, there is nothing in her file about this, I must have read it a hundred time. There's nothing but...some asshole cop in a rush to get out of here scribbled something about a possible recanting, but never followed up." He stopped rambling, and he looked at her. "I found him."

Her heart seemed to stop at the same time as her entire existence. "Did...did you..."

"No, no, I would never...not without you," he interjected again, knowing exactly which words were about to be spoken. "I, uh, I don't know if you want..."

"Where is he?" she asked, trepidation in her voice but fire in her eyes, as she stared back at him with unexpressed gratitude. "Who is he?"

He looked around, a cautionary glace sent to every other face in the room. "Liv, he..." He took a breath, knowing she'd take it badly. He lowered his voice, softened it, and tried to keep the urge to pull her into his arms at bay. "Honey, he...he's a..."

"Professor. I remember. He still at Marist? That's what..."

"Sienna," he said coolly, cutting her off. He waited for the fallout.

"What?" she breathed. "What did you say?" She'd frozen, gone pale white, lost all bearing, and needed to grip the chair behind her for stability.

He leaned a bit closer, he blnked, and he said, "For the last twenty years, he has been living as Raymond Fairbright, a criminolgy professor at Sienna. You...you were..."

"In his class," she spat, her eyes widened now. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I listened to that tape, over and over, memorized all of the information she gave the cop," he took a breath, "Six-two, medium build, brown eyes, dark hair, a scar under his left eye, a tattoo of his mother's name on his right shoulder, she even knew what car he drove, Liv. I'm sorry she lied to you for so long, and I'm sorry it took so fucking long to figure it all out, but seeing Hollister...going through all this bullshit with Cragen, it sparked something! I had to finish putting the pieces together, and when I did..." he scratched his hand down the back of his neck and exhaled again. "Joe Hollister, Spencer, Fairbright, they're all the same guy. Agent Hollister didn't lie to you, Simon didn't either. Not intentionally. Porter may have, but he didn't..."

"Slow the fuck down," she wheezed, lightheaded, she leaned back against a nearby desk and slapped one hand to her chest. "Agent Hollister told us...the DNA didn't match when..." she shook her head. "Did he even bother checking?"

"He didn't really know, Liv," Elliot said, soothing voice and mellow tone. "Once I told him what I knew, he was just as surprised as I was. But we found him, he's out there, and he..."

"I sat in his class, twice a week, two hours at a time, hanging onto his every word. He taught me so much about...victimology, the best way to handle traumatized..." she swallowed. "He was an expert on rape cases, taught us what evidence to look for first because it was always the last on the usual list, he knew...so fucking much, El."

He sighed again and tried to smile. "Now, you know why." He cleared his throat."Do you want me to call Tucker? Get him to get someone down here so we can..."

"No," she said, her voice firm. "No, we have too much going on here, and like I said, I let it go." She narrowed her eyes. "You dug into this because of a dream?"

He nodded. "It was muddled with a lot of wishful thinking," he chuckled. And after a breath, he spoke too fast and too hotly. "But I remembered taking you to see the mortician, and your mom's lawyer. I remembered the letter and safety deposit box, and what happened with that woman at the wake. And when I woke up, after a couple minutes, I...I remembered that we tried so hard to find him, and we always came up empty."

"El, breathe, it isn't..."

He interrupted her again. "Fuck, and then we had a name. A real name, but no record of the guy, no address, no stats, no matter how many times we looked. Then we nail down another name, Joe Hollister, we think we finally got him, and then we find out he's dead. Trail goes cold, but hey, you have a brother! And then all this bullshit with Cragen and Aldacott, and of all the fucking FBI agents in the world, the one that shows up when we need a fucking miracle just happens to be Joe Hollister's brother." He closed his eyes, opened them slowly, and said, "We just moved into the most amazing place, my kids love you almost as much as I do, and we have had so many conversations about how badly you want kids of your own, and how afraid you always were because you never knew exactly who those kids would be...because you never knew who you really were." He felt the catch in throat and cleared it away. "Now, you do."

The tears in her eyes formed without her permission, the pounding in her heart had written a new, unique beat, and her hands wound around his as though they had a mind of their own. "You...you did this because you think I want..."

"No," he cut in. "Because I know you want closure. Part of it was because I know you want a family, but mostly because, baby, you shouldn't have to leave one half of your personnel file blank, not anymore." He smirked, then. "The kids. I mean, you want them with me, though, right? Because I'll be fucking damned if I spent the last six hours hunting down the guy just so you cold hop into bed with Porter."

She laughed, tension finally dissipating and a smile gracing the lips that had been trembling a moment ago. "You," she said with a nod. "You know, it's always been you." She moved to kiss him, but remembered where she was. She swallowed, pressing her lps together, and then wiped her eyes. "We...we can't just leave. One of us has to pilot this plane."

He smled at her. "You stay," he told her. "I'll take the ride upstate with Hollister, we, uh, we'll bring him back here. He's got a lot of fucking questions to answer. I'm sure Porter has a few of his own, too." He glanced around the room, quickly kissed her cheek, and whispered, "I love you, Benson."

She grinned at him. "I love you, too, Stabler."

He was out the door before she could blink, heading off to finish something he'd started over a decade ago, in an attempt to clear away the last remaining grey areas of Olivia's life.

He just never intended to fog up a few of his own in the process.

 **A/N: What, what?**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Sometimes, the most amazing parts of life are the moments that exist between the black and white, the right and wrong. True emotion lies in the in-betweens, in the grey areas. - Anonymous.**

 **DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.**

"That's him?" Elliot snarled, slamming an open palm onto the hood of the cruiser he and Agent Hollister had taken upstate. "That," he pointed a thick finger downward, indicating the man in the back seat, "Is the man responsible for my…" he choked on the word, not understanding why it was ready to fly out of his mouth, but not sorry about it, either. "That piece of shit is Olivia's father?"

Hollister sighed. "My brother," he breathed. He smoothed a hand down the long collar of his coat and shook his head. "I thought he was dead for so long, I gave up trying to…" he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for what he said back there. Believe me, he wasn't always so crude."

Elliot scoffed. "He raped thirteen women, killed three, I find it a little hard to believe he was ever anything but vulgar." He growled as he bent to get into the passenger seat of the car, too pissed off to drive and too upset to keep talking.

Hollister closed his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing the ride back to the city would be long and, unfortunately, quiet.

It took just over an hour, noiseless except for the heavy breathing of the three men in the car. Hollister parked the car at an awkward angle, not quite in a space. He turned to say something to Elliot, but he was too late. The detective was already half-out of the car. With wide eyes, Hollister jumped out of the vehicle and opened the back door, taking hold of his brother before Elliot could. The last thing he needed was to witness a murder.

Elliot noticed this and rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't have hurt him," he said knowingly.

"No," Hollister agreed. "You would've killed him before we even reached the doors!"

"Neither of you has the balls," the cuffed man in Hollister's hold spat harshly. "I'm too important. I'm family, to both of you."

Elliot turned, sharply and with venom in his words and fire in his eyes. "You are not her family!" he yelled. "You're the reason she exists, and part of me is grateful to you for that, but you are not and never will be her family!" He reared back but caught himself, clenching his fists and lowering them, swallowing the urge to throw punches. He could almost feel his knuckles turning white. "Let's go," he hissed, and he whipped around again, his leather soles slapping on the gravel as he led the two men behind him into the station-house.

"You're just bitter," the gruff man said with a laugh, "Because I know all about you. You and my daughter." He let out another low laugh.

"Do not call her that," Elliot growled without looking back at him. "You're not her father. Not in any true sense of the word."

The man chortled, his slightly round belly shaking. "Biological," he corrected, winking at Elliot's reflection in the mirrored wall. "Speaking of biological fathers," he began. "Are you sure you're really the father of all of those precious, little children you claim you have?"

Elliot punched the button on the wall, hard, hoping to God that the elevator would move faster, eager to get this entire ordeal over with. "Yes," he said through gritted teeth.

"Positive? Not a doubt in your mind?" Fairbright, as he was going by now, pursed his lips. He didn't know one way or the other, but he knew he was getting under Elliot's skin, and that was the fun of it. "These cuffs," he said, raising his wrists slightly, "You ever use them in the bedroom? You're sleeping with my daughter, does she fight? She a fighter? Her mother was a fighter."

Elliot whirled around with a raised fist and would have landed a solid right-hook, but the ding of the elevator and Hollister's hard shove stopped him.

"Enough," Hollister said, eyeing Elliot. "Cool off." He leaned closer to Elliot. "You lay one finger on him, we have to let him go. He knows that, it's what he wants."

Elliot licked his lips and nodded, fuming in silence in the corner of the box. "I don't…I never…I would never…"

"I know that," Hollister affirmed, "So does he. He's trying to get under your skin and force you to make a mistake. Don't do it, Stabler. You and Benson waited too damn long for this to lose him on a technicality."

Elliot nodded again and took a deep breath, just as the elevator stopped and the doors cracked open. "Get him in the box," he commanded, and he ran off down the hall, heading for the squadroom. He found his target, looped his hand around her wrist, and pulled her away from her conversation unapologetically.

She turned when they came to a stop in a darkened, empty hallway. "What the hell is…"

Her words were killed by his kiss. His powerful, desperate, eager, passionate kiss. His hands flew to the sides of her head, his fingers tangling in the waves of her hair, and he pressed himself to her, so intensely close his heart beat against her chest.

She pushed him away when she needed to breathe, and she looked at him with shock in her eyes. "What the hell happened, El…oh. Oh, my God." She reached a shaking hand out to wipe the falling tears from his cheeks. "Calm down. I'm okay. We're okay."

"He's here," Elliot whispered to her. He sniffled and he clutched her hands in his, kissing each of her knuckles. "He's here and he…Liv, he knows things. He knows about my kids, the divorce, he knows…he knows about us." He blinked and, lifting her hands with his, wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "He knows so fucking much, about our lives. Not just yours, baby, mine. The kids."

She paled, his words sinking in, and she moved even closer to him. Her cream colored sweater contrasted the stark white her face had become, and her shaking body fell into his, looking for stability but finding a cushion just as weak and malleable. "Did he…does he…"

"He knew it was you," he whispered, answering her unasked question. "In his class, he knew. He really has been following you…us." He laughed. "He, uh, he actually yelled at me for having an affair with you for the last couple of years, so I guess he saw something we didn't."

"We saw it," she said, turning her face upward and looking into his eyes. "We just ignored it for too damn long."

He peered down at her, his grey suit wrinkling as he held her closer. "God, what I wouldn't give to be able to take you home right now, lock us in our bedroom, make up for so much lost time." He sighed and bent his head, kissing her slowly, letting his tongue explore deeply, languidly. His hands finally loosened their hold on her wrists and made a journey to a lower home, cupping just under her ass, lifting her slightly off of her feet. "Take you away from all of this bullshit," he mumbled against her lips, wishing he had the power to stop time, turn it back.

She kissed him back with fervor, her own fingers digging into his shoulder blades as she clung to him, sharing his yearning for the grey clouds overhead to dissipate. "El," she breathed. "Elliot, we should…we need to….stop."

Instantly, his hands dropped, his lips popped away from hers, he held her gaze. "What?"

She squinted. "I didn't mean…what happened? Are you…what's wrong?"

He scratched the back of his head, half-embarrassed. "You said stop, so I…"

"Oh, Elliot," she said on an amazed sigh, and her lips returned to his, this time gently, adoringly. She knew in that moment that his wild and untamed side came out when beckoned, but his tender side was always alive with her, respectful and delicate. "We need to…deal with this, with him." She pushed her hair behind her ears and took a slow, deep breath. Her color had returned, her lips a dark pink, still burning with his taste, her cheeks a hot, rosy hue.

He nodded, begrudgingly agreeing with her. "I love you." It was firm. Absolute. "No matter what he says, what we hear, it doesn't change who you are, who you've become without him, and I need you to know, I love you. I always have, I always will, and nothing that happens in that room…"

"I know," she said, cutting him off abruptly. She nodded once and followed his lead, down the hall and around the corner into the viewing room, and she gave him another longing glance as she watched him disappear behind a large metal door. Her fingers trembled as she reached out to press the button on the speaker, bringing the conversation taking place behind the glass into light.

"Where is she?" Fairbright asked, his hands still cuffed and now chained to the metal table in front of him. "Didn't you bring me here to see her?"

"No, I brought you here so she could see you, Fairbright," Elliot said, kicking a chair and plopping into it. "Big difference."

"Can we drop the bunko name now?" Agent Hollister asked, rubbing his forehead. "Joe, you have a lot of shit to account for, here. Start with Serena…"

"Benson," Joe finished, a light in his eyes that hadn't existed a moment ago. "God, she was beautiful. Had the most amazing eyes." He licked his lips. "I never intended for things to…go the way they went. We were dating, I thought that…well, back then it was just taken for granted that…"

"She said no, she told you to stop, and you were both drunk out of your minds," Elliot spat, not about to let the man who raped Olivia's mother make it out to be a case of miscommunication.

Joe looked at Elliot, then, something close to pride in his eyes. "I know that, and I regret that, because I wanted nothing more…than for her to want me, you understand what that's like, Stabler. Loving someone so much, hurting like hell because you know they want you, too, and they're too scared to admit it."

"What happened between me and Liv is nothing like…"

"It's exactly the same," Joe hissed. "Only I had the balls and the liquid courage to go after what I wanted before it was too late, before she slipped away." He snorted. "Didn't expect her to freak out the way she did, run off like a fucking lunatic. I didn't even know she was pregnant until almost eight months in, when some cop came banging on my door telling me I was wanted for questioning."

Agent Hollister cringed. "They had you, they had you and they let you go, is that when you realized how easily you could get away with…"

"It's what triggered my disease, Charlie," Joe shouted. "I was always…wrong! You saw it! Mom knew it! No one did shit!" He inhaled sharply. "I have no impulse control, and when I get angry…I can't reign it in, and when I get in a certain mindset…there's no snapping me out of it." He turned to look at Elliot. "Don't, okay? I know what you're thinking, and yes, she's like me in a lot of ways, but the difference is, she has you. She had her mom, and her friends, and boyfriends before you…and then you," he breathed. "Someone was always there to pull her back from the edge before she was too far gone, you do it better than anyone ever has, and I don't know that she'd survive losing you."

"Well, luckily, we'll never have to find out," Elliot said honestly. "She, uh, she does the same for me. But you had people, you had your brother…"

"Oh, please!" Joe barked. "Charlie? He didn't give two shits about me. He fucking thought I was dead for the last…"

"So did your daughter!" Elliot yelled. "And your son. And your wife." He got up and moved closer to Joe Hollister. "She was looking for you, and when she found you, you were gone, left nothing behind but a box of newspaper articles and pictures, and…"

"I was so proud of her," Joe interrupted. "I was, and I am, and I'm glad she knew that, that she found out I knew all along who she was, and I…it was time to let go of Joe Hollister, find out who I really was."

"A serial killer," Charles scoffed. "Rapist, escaped convict, wanted criminal…"

"Fuck you," Joe hissed. "I told you, I have problems controlling my impulses and when I got in over my head, I moved on! I started over! And I tried to be better!"

"Yeah." Elliot shook his head and slid a large notepad over to Joe. "And the time you spent as Ray Fairbright, when your daughter showed up in your class, you let her think…"

"I spent time with her, without her hating me! Without her being terrified! She didn't think I was a monster! I was there for her! Like a father! She never looked at me with disgust in her eyes, and I got to watch her thrive and prove how brilliant she was over and over again, so please, tell me, what harm did that do?"

Elliot shot to his feet and pointed a finger at him. "That! Right there! The fact that you even asked what harm it did…" he laughed snidely. "Proves you don't really know her at all. You don't know a fucking thing about either one of us." He kicked the chair again, this time out of his way, and he pushed through the door, letting it slam behind him.

In the viewing room, his eyes locked with hers, and she ran to him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing tightly.

He squeezed back just as hard, rested his chin on the top of her head, and let his eyes watch through the glass as Charles told Joe to write down every detail of each illegal act he'd been charged with, and he took a deep breath. "Baby," he said, "Are you okay?"

She nodded into his chest and mumbled something he couldn't quite understand.

"Huh?" he queried, and he pushed her back gently. "What did you say?"

She blinked. "I said, thank you." She pressed a soft kiss to his chin and then looked to her right. Behind a thick pane of glass, the man who'd evaded her for so long, who made her life hell without even being a part of it, wrote something one could consider an autobiography or confessional. He had a face. He had a name. He had a history. Now, so did she. She sniffled and smiled slightly, realizing that with the last bit of grey finally a solid color, she could finally pave a path to a firm future with Elliot, and she could finally answer the question he'd been asking her for days. She turned back to him and as she looked up she noticed he was looking right back down at her. She kissed him and when she was sure he would understand, she said, "By the way…"

He held his breath.

"Yes."

 **A/N: The final chapter to this arrives…next.**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: In the end, we are all a mix of bright colors and intense hues, refusing to live in a world of grey.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters as written on the TV show, but this version of them? All mine.**

"You sure this is what you want?" Munch raised one eyebrow as he peered at Olivia over his glasses. "Both of you?"

She looked at Elliot, who nodded once, and she sighed. "Yeah," she crossed her arms and leaned back in the leather chair. "We decided we just...needed to get back to some semblance of normal. We couldn't do that if one of us was behind that desk."

Elliot smirked and reached for her hand. "We needed regular shifts, decent hours, having one of us constantly on call would...well, it would make things more difficult for us."

Munch swiped the back of his hand across his forehead as he leaned against the large oak desk behind him, making an odd sort of grunting sound. "You really think I'm the better option, though?"

"You got the experience," Elliot said, "And you know you'll be better off in charge, telling us all what to do, than out in the field. No more need for your special pillow, or complaining that you ran too far, no more chiropractic…"

"Are you calling me old?" Munch asked, feigning offense.

"You? Old? Never," Olivia chuckled. She took a breath and said, "We, um, we have something to tell you."

"It's kind of why we wanted to talk to you," Elliot offered up, biting his lip. "Now, uh, now that you're the captain, we think you should…"

"Is it gonna give me headache?" Munch interrupted, whining, slumping slightly.

Olivia smiled. "Maybe," she said. "But maybe not. Tucker already knows, and he's sure it's not going to cause problems. At least, not now that we, uh, are still a team."

Munch looked at them, dropped his gaze to their knotted hands, and he said, "You taking the leap?" He shot Elliot a stunned glance. "You ready for marriage number two already?"

"With her?" Elliot said, grinning, "Absolutely."

Munch looked at him and with a sort of resigned sadness, he said, "Just don't turn into me, hear?"

Elliot shook his head. "Man, you just haven't found your Liv, yet. When I met her, I knew...and as soon as I could, I told her. You'll find someone who makes every day seem like a miracle, who makes the most mundane moments feel like thrill rides at Disneyland," he laughed. He looked over at Olivia and said, "And as soon as you find her, your world will be brighter, things will be...so much clearer...every answer to every question you've ever had will be right there, in her eyes, and any fears or doubts you've ever had will just...disappear."

Munch noticed how intensely they were looking at each other now, the tears filling both pairs of eyes, the tight grip on each other's hands. "Did you just propose to her? Well, again?"

Elliot chuckled and looked back at Munch, keeping Olivia's hand in his. "Maybe I did," he winked at Munch. "Well, that...that's it. We just wanted to tell you, so that…" he cleared his throat. "We didn't want to hide this, ya know?" He turned his head and smiled at Olivia. "We spent too damn long trying to get here, we don't want to go back to pretending like…"

"I get it," Munch said, interrupting. He looked around the office, the bare walls, the boxes of his things that he still hadn't put in their places. "I never thought he would…"

"Neither did we," Olivia cut in, stopping him from voicing words that would make them upset. "There were little things…" she said as her eyes fell to a small stain on the rug, almost glazing over. "Sometimes he said something that seemed a little too harsh, or purposely sent us out on a call he knew wasn't exactly...legit." She shook her head and bit her lip, and she took a breath. "Some things he would write us up for, things he would say to Elliot…" she looked up then. "It wasn't such a surprise, looking back, but you know what they say...hindsight is twenty-twenty. We loved him, we...we felt like he loved us, so we always just…"

"We saw what we wanted to see," Munch said, walking around to the back of the desk and sitting. "Okay, um, well thanks for filling me in on your...news." He looked up a them, tried to be as serious as he could, and he exhaled harshly as he said, "Get back to work. You have two witnesses to re-interview, then go talk to the doctor again. Something in his report doesn't add up."

Olivia rolled her eyes and got to her feet. "Yes, Captain," she said, knowing that he fell right into his usual commander routine. She caught Elliot's eyes and said, "You heard the man." She walked out in front of him, not even looking over her shoulder. "Back to work, Stabler."

He grumbled under his breath, something that couldn't really be understood, if it was even English. He cleared his throat, then, and said louder, "Ya know, if one of us would've taken the desk, I could fuck you in the middle of this room, and no one would care, but now, it's 'Stabler,' huh?" He licked his lips and smirked. "All right, Benson," he spat with a wink. "Let's go…"

His words were cut off by her lips, pressing against his, her hands gripping the sides of his head. "Shut up," she chuckled, shaking her head. She grabbed her jacket off her chair and the car keys off of his desk. She jingled the keys in her hand a couple of times and then headed for the door, tossing them over her shoulder. "And drive."

He curled his fingers around the keys and closed his eyes, smiling as he said a silent prayer of thanks, grateful that God saw fit to finally fill his world with love, light, and color, after he'd been living in a world of grey for far too long. He followed her path, smiling, and as he stepped out into the hallway, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

He caught up to Olivia at the elevator and he leaned over, whispering something in her ear. He saw her blush, a beautiful rosy shade of pink.

She looked at him as the door opened. "I love you, too," she whispered.

When the doors closed, they shared a smile, a thousand words passed between them with a single, silent look, and that's when he knew. They had each other, firmly, permanently, and without a doubt, there would be no more grey areas.

 **A/N: And this story comes to an end, the grey areas now bright and clear. Thanks for sticking with it, and hope to see you all in my new stories.**


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